Ch 173 – Onto the Land of Dreams

Nox Aeterna lets out a breath of turbid air, beads of sweat falling from his forehead as he pulled his hands away from the ground where the magic circle has lost its rainbow glow. Deep into the ground, he could feel the deep connection he had with the control room hidden and smiled lightly. Examining his own soul, he could see that he lost some spiritual energy while most of his mana was depleted, only a small thin sheet of mana remained inside his mana reservoir.

Opening his eyes, Nox Aeterna sits down on the soft green ground where the magic circle has already disappeared after losing its source of mana. Getting into a comfortable position, Nox Aeterna closes his eyes and the ground beside him shook, and out came a bottle made out of a blue material similar to jade or porcelain.

Grabbing it while still having his eyes closed, Nox Aeterna swiftly moved his childish hands and popped open the bottle. Instantly, a strong aroma pervaded the air as he glances inside and saw the glowing blue liquid swirling in the bottle. It was a top-quality mana potion, though far inferior to the highest-quality mana potion back in Tellus, Nox Aeterna was more than satisfied with its effectiveness.

And so, he puts the bottle near his mouth and hastily drinks the whole bottle. Instantly, a surge of dense mana entered his body and onto his soul which he masterfully controls and absorbs with efficiency and grace. As more time passes, the more he reintegrates his original body's skills and comprehension, which means he'll get stronger each passing second even if he doesn't actively make his soul stronger or do any sort of training.

But that would be counterproductive, and Nox Aeterna knew that clearly. He himself set a month as his deadline to reach S-Rank, he of course would maximize his own time to quickly grow stronger. S-Rank was only a level below the pinnacle of mortals, Z-Rank, or what is commonly known as Demigods. S-Ranks, though not as impressive as Z-Rank, still holds prestigious might and are treated as legendary figures no matter what world they live in.

Quickly pushing his thoughts away, Nox Aeterna felt his soul brimming with an ethereal energy known as mana and he opened his eyes. As his pair of rainbow eyes glittered brilliantly like a pair of priceless jewels, he stretches out his hand and a complex magical interface appeared in front of him quickly.

There was a white screen, along with multiple runes and magic matrixes floating all around it and his outstretched arm. Controlling his mana, he could feel a sense of connection now spreading everywhere as he felt his control corrupting all of the golems, magical constructs, magical inscriptions, the barrier, and other items all around the house.

Even though he only has a fraction of his original body's skills and law comprehension, Isaac Deathwill was still renowned as the Emperor of Death, an undead lich more than a millennium old and has reached the peak of the mortal realm, with already one foot stepping into the realm of Gods! As his original self, he was an old monster who has acquired wondrous abilities befitting his prestige and age.

Seeing that the connection process went well without any drawbacks or imperfections, he lightly rotated his body's child arm and knew that the next step is about to start.

The construction of his own hidden room. A hidden room where he can safely explore and traverse endless dreams without having to worry about death and such. Because of the imperfect cloning process, he can't do most of what the original body can do and have limited means before the integration is done. He can't cast all the immortality spells Isaac knew, he can't replicate the nanites, etc.

If he can, then Nox Aeterna was confident that he'd be able to reach S-Rank if he were to take some risks like absorbing the souls of his parents and such. He of course knew many methods of growing quickly, but he can't execute most of them without facing life-taking risks.

So, with limited abilities and methods at his disposal, constructing a hidden room that cannot just secure his safety, but also optimize his dream explorations while also hastening the integration and synchronicity process would be far more beneficial long-term.

Quickly, he ordered the innumerable high-quality golems of the house and felt the entire ground shaking as marching footsteps echoed in the distance. Even in such a faraway area, he can see the golems entering and leaving the house to gather supplies, grab equipment, dig out some parts of the house, rebuild some parts of the house, and such.

Smoke slowly rose through the sky from the intense building process, which Nox Aeterna didn't need to worry about as his next operation will deal with that. Closing his eyes once more, his vision changed into a bird's eye view of the entire family estate and he saw himself in the very center, right atop the hidden room and below the peak of the barrier.

As the thin blue barrier pulsate and used mana, he stretched out a metaphysical hand and with a tug, the barrier slowly changed under his influence. It slowly turned invisible not just from physical, but also magical vision. If one were to envelop their eyes with mana to see the mana in the atmosphere, then they'd be incapable of directly seeing the barrier of the Aeterna Family Estate.

With such a large barrier being hidden so well in such a short time, it makes one shudder at the fact that this was only a small fraction of Isaac's true capabilities. This was the might of a thousand years old peak Z-Rank Lich!

But Nox didn't stop there, no he did not. He knows the value of this barrier, it's not just a simple barrier that can protect him from harm, it can also be treated as a weapon! With his immense knowledge of the arcane path, even if just a fraction of that were to remain, he still knows plenty of ways to alter the structure of the magic barrier to cast a powerful attack on his enemies.

Slowly, the barrier gained more and more modifiers. From nigh-perfect invisibility to self-sustenance by absorbing the mana in the air, to even attack, defend, move, transform, cast spells, and such! It became a barrier that when sold or revealed to the public, would cause riots throughout the entire world as people of high power would greedily want to get the barrier for themselves.

It was essentially a barrier that can even deter attacks from peak S-Rank beings, and perhaps even Z-Rank beings if it was to be improved further. But Nox Aeterna knew that this was the current limit of his abilities and materials, so he stopped and exhaled for a long while. To exert such strenuous activities after just healing his soul, he can already feel his body going lethargic, which was something he hasn't experienced in a long time in both of his original bodies.

As an undead lich, he would never face exhaustion.

As a human that has nanites coursing through his entire body, he can essentially modify his entire physical body as he pleases which allowed him to remain in tip-top shape no matter how hard he exerted himself physically.

But he knew that his work was far from done. So he pushed himself off the ground and stared at the blue sky once more with his pair of brilliant rainbow eyes. 'If the cloning process had gone smoothly, then I wouldn't even need to exert myself to such an extent because of all my Law Comprehensions.'

Chuckling lightly, his eyes glowed brilliant, and instantly, his vision changed once more to the same bird's-eye as before. All throughout the family estate, he instantly saw all the magical constructs and magical inscriptions located everywhere. From magic circles, runes, sigils, summoning circles, defense systems, gardening systems, etc.

Normal people would have already wetted their pants if they saw so many complex magical constructs, but Nox barely even glanced at them with disinterest. In his eyes, they were only second-rate magical constructs that couldn't even compare to his own creations.

Waving both of his arms in an arc, the magical constructs throughout the house started to morph once more as he used a strange form of magic to directly use the magical constructs themselves to morph them without having to use his own mana. The downside was that this would exert a lot of calculation prowess along with soul strength, but Nox Aeterna was confident in his own abilities.

Even when his soul aches with pain from moving so many things at once, and his veins can be seen popping as oxygen hurried toward his brain, his face remained cold and distant. Even when his arms felt like they were holding mountains, even when it felt like lava was coursing through his entire body, he still relentlessly altered the entire house without even budging an inch.

Beads of sweat fell from his forehead down to the green grassy ground below him, while even blood dripped from his nose, but his eyes shone brilliantly as he can feel that his comprehension of laws already increasing rapidly as more and more visions flashed through his eyes.

Eventually, his hands slowly dropped to the ground as he closed his eyes, and his whole body deflated like a balloon. He lets out turbid air once more from his nostrils, and he wiped the blood and sweat from his face using his shirt. Squatting to the ground, the ground moves once more and he grabbed multiple bottles containing high-quality medicine and consumed them without even hesitation.

'My consumption must have already been around five hundred thousand dollars already. But medicine and money is simply a tool to be used, so why not use them? Just like hoarders in a game, when they mindlessly store potentially useful items and never used them, then those items are essentially worthless junk that only gobbles up space.'

A warm stream of mana covered his entire body, and a relaxing feeling greeted him. Not only that, but the blood and sweat covering his entire body were also swept away.

Not wasting any more time, a bright white light covered Nox Aeterna's body and he disappeared from the middle of the family estate where the control room was hidden deep underground. In the next moment, he opened his eyes and found himself appearing in front of a strange hole located near the backside of the family manor.

Casting some spells over his body, he rapidly descends down the tunnel and passed by multiple golems along the way. The more he descends, the louder the clang of metals became. The closer he got to the bottom of the hole, the brighter the flashes of light became.

Eventually, he stopped and found himself arriving at a wide spacious room deep in the ground where multiple golems can be seen digging out a spacious cavern. Not only that, but there were also materials dumped into neat little piles on the side, along with talismans, mana crystals, and other magic-related items.

"Everyone, get out. Let me handle it from here," Nox Aeterna softly called out and the golems stopped their movements. Bowing to him, they turned around and rapidly walked up the tunnel and magically enough, the dirt behind them moved and resealed the tunnel automatically, leaving Nox behind inside the hollow cavern.

As pitch darkness descends, only a pair of rainbow eyes gleamed in the black room and Nox stretches his hand out slowly. Instantly, mana grabbed hold of the materials in tidy neat piles, and he hastily used his own superior methods and reintegrated skills to slowly alter the room to his own content.

Metals covered the dirt walls, floor, and ceiling. Talismans flew all around him, casting their own effects to reinforce the entire room to another level. He grinded down the mana crystals and they swirled around him like a vortex of glittering blue fragments, and his arms weaved through multiple signs per second to slowly make a complex spell matrix in the air in front of him.

Magic circles and runes slowly covered all the sides of the room, further reinforcing them to an absurd level. In front of him, the magic matrix slowly took shape and turned into a rainbow color.

Finally, his arms stopped and he stared at the magnificent construct in front of him that took him around an hour to make.

There was a rainbow-colored magic circle on the ground and the ceiling. All around the edges of the circle, rainbow-colored runes lined in chains from the floor to the ceiling like a barrier of runes. In the center of it all, crystals floated around to form a hollow sphere where dense magical energy was located. Not only that, he can clearly sense the Law of Dreams in the center of the magical construct was densely packed and active.

Seeing his masterpiece, Nox Aeterna's eyes glimmered with satisfaction. Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself down and took his first step, for the grandeur path of dreams was laid out in front of him.

AN: This chapter has 2219 words.

Yeah, I'm a huge fan of Reverend Insanity. While I do want to write a fanfic for it, the complexity would be just too insane for me. The RI world is just so full of details that writing a fanfic about it is would be akin to understanding the entirety of RI, taking down notes of nearly everything from minor characters to events, then if we add time travel then bam, timelines. Not to mention on how you would deal with the insanely smart characters, hidden organizations, how events would unfold if a new character appears or if a character were to change, how you'll create Gu, their Gu recipes, their abilities, their food, and bla bla bla. Yeah, that's why Gu Zen Ren is a god in my opinion when he wrote Reverend Insanity.

(October 12, 2022 – 322nd day of writing)