Gray Gold

After improving the initial settings, Jack crafted a rank 9 world again and went in for another round.

...

Rachel, with closed eyes, was concentrating.

Even after attaining rank 14, she still hadn't changed her shape. Although she could easily change her shape and size, her overall form must still be a pill container.

Her shape, a pill container, is key to her ability to draw from the gray energy directly; she never wanted to get rid of it and doesn't even think it is possible.

Still, she retained some human instincts, such as closing her eyes and blinking.

Her incarnations have a fixed 360-degree view and cannot close their eyes, but as the main body, Rachel has special abilities; she can close her eyes. Even now, after so long, closing her eyes does make a small difference; it optimizes brain power usage, allowing her to calculate more with less brain power.

After a few minutes, she opened her eyes and looked around.

Her vision was strong; she could see the entire universe in 360 degrees with amazing detail passively, and if she zoomed in, she could even penetrate other charges of reality.

She didn't need to look around at all, or rather, as having a 360-degree vision, looking around was meaningless; still, looking around was a habit she kept; her core human memories had become part of her personality, and she hadn't forgotten them even after so long.

"It takes so much brain power!" she thought unwillingly.

She had been trying to design a special spell, but its brainpower consumption was just terrifying.

Generally, the higher the rank of a spell, the harder it is to calculate. A rank 1 spell is easy for Rachel to calculate, while it's very difficult for a rank 1 mage.

For Rachel at this moment, calculating ranks 1 to 9 is beyond easy; she can calculate an infinite number in a moment.

Calculating rank 10 and 11 spells is extremely easy, and calculating rank 12 and 13 is also not difficult, though more advanced rank 13 spells may take some time.

Calculating rank 14 spells, however, is difficult; she has no quasi-omniscient mastery, which makes it much harder. She may be able to calculate one simple rank 14 spell after working hard for 100 billion years.

Still, there are many already made spells for sale; she has already bought 5 rank 14 spells from the interuniversal database.

However, the spell she is trying to calculate is beyond even rank simple 14; she is calculating the Gray Gold bomb spell!

After years of calculation, she finally discovered why the combination of Gray and Creation energies explodes. She considered all the possibilities and, with much experimentation and calculation, confirmed many things she had doubted for a long time.

First, she confirmed that the creation is indeed not rank 15; now, there is no longer any doubt about it. The creation is only quasi rank 15, and not true rank 15.

Second, she confirmed that her gray energy is also quasi-rank 15.

Both are actually equal; both are infinities, but they are not overlapping infinities. The creation's sphere doesn't reach into the gray realm, and the gray realm doesn't reach into the creation.

This means that gray energy will always be at a disadvantage while in the creation's sphere.

Still, as an infinity, she can draw as much as she wants, so usually, that is not a real disadvantage. After all, compared to all other rank 14s, her rate of draw is far higher.

Technically, the gray realm is a far smaller infinity than the creation, but the concept of small and big becomes hazy regarding infinities.

Sure, the creation is technically a bigger infinity, but practically, it doesn't matter; theory and reality are different.

From a purely mathematical perspective, of course, there are bigger and smaller infinities, but when brought to practicality, no matter how small or big the infinity is, they are still infinities. One cannot just subtract one from another; that is, by definition, impossible.

To understand better, one must dive deep into the basics. What is subtraction, and what is addition?

Subtracting is removing a defined amount from a defined initial value. So, what is the answer to ∞ - 1? The answer would always be the same: infinity; subtracting from infinity is meaningless.

The same is true about addition; addition adds a defined value to an initial defined value. No matter how much one adds to an infinity, the resulting answer will always remain infinity; addition and subtraction are meaningless to infinities.

Now, what would be the result of 1 - ∞? The result would be - ∞ , basically the same infinity just with a negative charge.

And 1 + ∞ results in a positive infinity.

Now, what would the answer to ∞ - ∞ be? It's not a difficult question; as mentioned and explained before, subtraction and addition would not work for infinite values; therefore, it's even theoretically impossible to subtract an infinity from another; this question has no answer.

What is an apple minus an orange? It has no answer, as apples and oranges are undefined. The core of this problem is the word 'undefined'. One cannot add or subtract anything from an undefined value; math is a precise art; it would require a certain input to produce a certain output; infinity, by definition, is not a certain input.

It can be said that math lacks the ability to work well with undefined values.

In this case, even though the creation is much bigger and the gray realm is tiny in comparison, both are quasi-rank 15 and equal in power.

That is to say that, in effect, infinities are equally powerful. Being equally powerful doesn't mean their size is the same; rather, they are equal in not being restrained by boundaries that restrain finite values; both have infinite energy. Therefore, both are equal and are undefined to any limit.

In short, addition and subtraction don't work on infinities; therefore, smaller and bigger infinities are meaningless, as one cannot subtract or add them together.

In theory, it also means that one can create an unlimited number of quasi-rank 15s, as both the creation and the gray realm can split infinitely.

But quasi rank 15 is not true rank 15.

Rank 15 means omniscient and omnipotent, in addition to infinity. Having infinite energy doesn't necessarily lead to being omnipotent and omniscient.

There is one simple condition to being omniscient and omnipotent. That is, reach.

As said before, the creation doesn't have any reach into gray energy; if it had, it would have been true rank 15. It lost its reach into the gray realm when it broke off from it. It kept its infinity, but it no longer has reach over the gray realm, which means there are things the creation cannot do and things it doesn't know.

Only the gray realm, Rachel's system, is omniscient and omnipotent in the gray realm.

In the creation, though, the gray realm is not omniscient and omnipotent.

Fortunately for Rachel, the creation is not a conscious being, so it actually never attacked her or any of her incarnations; otherwise, it would have been easy, or better said, literally effortless, to wipe her out.

The creation is omniscient and omnipotent in areas it has reach; this universe is under the reach of the creation.

Now, one question: would it be possible for both the creation and the gray realm to reach rank 15 by having overlapping reaches? The answer is possibly yes, but once both have the same overlapping reach, both actually become one.

So, a hundred rank 15s with the same overlapping reach are actually no different from one rank 15. That's why it's impossible to have more than one true rank 15; if there are two or more, they automatically merge into one.

All that said, it's not certain that they can have overlapping reaches; as of the moment, if Rachel was a betting girl, she would have bet on them not being able to have overlapping reaches.

So, why does the addition of two forces of the creation and the gray energy explode?

That is related to how the reach works.

Gray energy has a reach that extends to the gray realm but not to the creation. As of now, It won't allow other forces to have reach over the gray realm. The same is true about the creation; it has reach over the creation but won't allow other infinities to have reach over its realm, the creation.

These quasi-rank 15 forces are mutually exclusive; trying to combine them would only produce explosions.

Theoretically, mixing these two forces, the creation energy, and the gray energy, should create a rank 15 energy, but that is just a misunderstanding of how to rank 15 energy works. Rank 15 energy is rank 15 because of its source; in other words, no rank 15 energy can exist without a true rank 15 entity.

As long as there is no rank 15 entity, nothing can produce rank 15 energy. Even if an infinite number of quasi-rank 15s mix, even if their combined reach covers the entire range, they would still not form true rank 15 energy because there is no true rank 15 amongst them.

So, combining gray energy and creation energy to form a true rank of 15 energy is just a pipe dream.

It makes sense that it is not possible because her many other incarnations would have already done that if it were possible.

So, what spell is Rachel working on? She is working on a spell that makes use of the massive explosion that happens once gray energy and the creation energy mix.

She calls it Gray Gold Bomb.

The last time, she just mixed a minuscule amount of gray energy with the creation energy, and that tiny bit was enough to destroy this entire universe if she didn't stop it. Now, she cannot imagine what happens if she mixes bigger quantities.

She theorizes that the reason for such big explosions lies in the source of these energies. The conflict is not just between that minuscule gray and creation energy, but among the creation and the gray realm; even if an infinitesimally tiny conflict, it is still between two infinities.

Unfortunately, calculating this spell is much harder than simple rank 14 spells; without a quasi-omniscient mastery, it borders on impossible.

Fortunately, she launched the Dream World project, which yielded results. Now, Rachel has supreme grandmaster mastery for thousands of concepts; this strengthened her ability to calculate rank 14 spells.

Unfortunately, quasi-omniscience is not this easy; she is still not even close to reaching any quasi-omniscient mastery. Without at least one mastery of the quasi-omniscient level, she has very little chance of successfully calculating the Gray Gold Bomb in less than 1099 years.

Checking the results of the Dreamlands, she shook her head; it wasn't enough!

"I should start the next project!" she thought.

This project is about expanding her current universe.

With gray energy, she can expand the universe; in the last trillion years, she has already done the theoretical calculations, and only practical difficulties remain. Still, it must be done.

Thinking of this, she no longer hesitated and waved her metaphorical hand.

At this moment, Luther is still stuck at rank 13.

Low-ranking incarnations must wait for their hosts to advance to advance with them, but the main body, who has already hacked most of the system, can shrug off these requirements. As a result, Luther is quite weak compared to her now. He can still use gray energy, but he himself doesn't have any output of creation energy.

Anyways, with a wave of her imaginary hand, all the chaos outside the universe was wiped out, sent to other, far away charges of reality.

At the moment, Rachel can easily travel to farther away charges of reality; she still doesn't do it because she is still weak compared to her other incarnations. She would at least wait for the gray gold bomb. Gray gold bomb is like an atomic bomb on earth; it's a trump card that nobody dares to use; with it, Rachel can even harm much stronger rank 14s.

As it turned out, Rachel and her interuniversal incarnations aren't friendly, so one must be careful. But sending these chaotic energies away is simple and doesn't require any caution.

Like this, with one move, Rachel completely cleared the feared endless space outside the universe, ridding it of all the chaos.