CHAPTER 54: THE ELEMENT OF SPACE

Did you know:

The Space Gem (Marvel Comics) allows its user to manipulate space anyway they see fit. Its most basic powers allow one to teleport themselves and others any place they can picture in their mind, regardless of distance or preventive measures, such as walls or spells. It can increase the speed of the user and allow them to manipulate gravity and create black holes. Its more powerful abilities allow one to appear in multiple places at once or altering the distance between objects contrary to the laws of physics.

In the MCU however it is called the Space Stone. Aside from the ability to create portals and wormholes throughout the Universe, The Mad Titan Thanos has been shown to be able to expertly use the Space Stone to warp the fabric of space to generate powerful spatial pressure around his surroundings, capable of crushing, pulling and freezing with tremendous force in a manner akin to telekinesis enable him to manipulate and move objects with just a single gesture of the Infinity Gauntlet, an ability that proved to be among Thanos' most often used. (Source: Marvel Wiki)

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Ed has just woke up from a bad dream. He was sweating, the bed was soaked, and his sleeping clothes were drenched in sweat. Ed stood up and instantly changed his clothes, he looked at his body, his scars visible, in the shoulder and the stomach, constantly reminding him of the fight. he was still gasping for air because of the nightmare, and sat on the floor, calming himself.

'Why…' he thought to himself, 'Why does it feel so real…'

Ed was pale, he was thinking about the nightmare, or really, it's a memory. Since the trial, he has always been dreaming about when the head council stabbed him in the stomach and when he waited for the embrace of death on that cold ground. He couldn't get over the feeling, the feeling of hopelessness and despair, he never wanted to feel it again, and thus his hunger for power began to rise.

'I need to search the other sections of the library…' Ed thought in a flash, 'Fuck the rule… I've already been discovered anyway…'

He then stood up, he quickly changed the bedsheet, and throw it on the basket, who knows who will wash it, but he didn't care right now as he bolted off the room and walked to the library.

Ed then entered the library, and suddenly there's this feeling, an instinct that is guiding him through the gapes of the shelves. Ed knows that someone, something was guiding him but he didn't who or what, yet he still decided to follow it, anticipating the outcome of the journey.

He then stopped in front of a shelf, it was normal like the others, but there was a book in it that caught Ed's attention, something in his mind was telling him to grab the book and read it, and read the book he did.

A couple hours of reading later Ed stood up, he seems to have an epiphany or something. He took the book and was now walking through the library, heading towards the training room, he just had a breakthrough, the book in hand, its title is 'The Element of Space', he had read the book and discover something about himself that, if he guessed right, will boost his power by a lot.

Ed opened the door to the training room, seemingly ready for training. He wore a black tank top, he opened the book to make sure that his theory is right and put it aside. Before he could try the theory though Gilligan appeared out of nowhere, stopping Ed from doing it.

"What are you doing?" Gilligan asked in a demanding tone.

"Getting stronger." Ed answered coolly. "Are you hiding this? If my theory is right, then the element of space is much stronger than just 'blinking' and creating a portal."

Gilligan narrowed his eyes, "I didn't hide anything." He countered, "But what are we talking about here?"

Ed snorted, "I thought you're omniscient around these parts, how come you ask me what I'm talking about here?"

The owl eyed Ed for a second, before sighing, "Perhaps I've been too strict towards your education…"

"What do you mean?" Ed asked, a bit angry at the words.

"I didn't trust you to wield such power Ed." Gilligan said, he appeared closer to Ed, staring at his silver eyes directly, "Power corrupts people, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

"So, the book is true then?" Ed said in, demanding answer to the owl. "My 'Space' element is much more than what I've got right now."

"It's true." Gilligan dropped the bomb, "But I thought I told you a million times that you can't take a book from other sections Ed, this is not from this world."

"But that rule exist so that I can't be detected by the council of worlds right!?" Ed questioned angrily, "So why bother enforcing that rule? I've been detected anyway!"

"While one of the reasons is to not get you detected, it is also to prevent you to drown in the madness of consuming knowledge Ed, I will forbid you any further to search for books that is not from this world's section."

"That's not all of it." Ed continued, he looked annoyed at the owl as he just essentially forbid him from studying the book in his hand. "There's someone… something guiding me to this book." Ed said while showing off the book, "It felt like an instinct, I just knew that someone tried to guide me to this, to help me get rid of this feeling of helplessness…"

Gilligan frowned, "That is probably my father, but I digress, you will not learn it until you're ready, until then, the other sections is off limits."

"That's not fair!" Ed said, his face looks like he is in rage, "Alan can do it! Why can't I!"

Gilligan sighed, "You can't control your emotions right now while Alan can, you are in your teenage and rebellious stage, if you can't control your emotions, who knows what will happen in this world, especially with the element of space in your hand…"

Ed realized this and took a deep breath, he looked away from Gilligan and said, "Don't worry, I can control it, Occlumency does the job most of the time."

"The keyword is 'most'." Gilligan said, "Not all the time."

Ed stared at Gilligan intensely, his face showing annoyance, but a few seconds later, his face changed to a man in need of saving.

"Please Gilligan…" Ed begged, "Teach me the real Space Element, I don't want to feel helpless like I did when I was fighting that wretched man…"

"Ed-"

"Do you know how it feels!?" Ed roared, "Lying in the cold ground… waiting for death… knowing that you failed your family, knowing that you're never going to see them again."

Gilligan's gaze soften as Ed spoke his case, the owl sighed in surrender and ruffled Ed's hair with his wing, "Fine, I'll train you. But you need to control your emotions Ed, otherwise what I will teach you will only corrupt your heart. And you still can't search the library randomly, stick to this world's section."

Ed nodded softly, "Thank you Gilligan…"

Gilligan just disappeared, and brought out more books for Ed to study, all of them is about Space, there is all kinds of books, starting from a book that drives a connection between momentum and space, gravity and space, time and space, power and space, the theory of omnipresence, theory of spatial pressure, spatial warp, and many more.

"This is… a lot." Ed commented, impressed on how much knowledge about space the library has. "And you've been hiding this all from me?" Ed snorted.

"It's normal that we have knowledge about the element of space, our main artifact controls space after all…"

Ed hummed, "It's Baldeth right?"

Gilligan nodded, "Now, read all of this first, practice later."

Ed sighed, "Fine…"

But then a man suddenly barged in, "Hey nephew, you know where Gilligan is? He's not answ-" the man then looked at Gilligan who was standing beside Ed, "Oh, here he is."

"I can train you later Alan, I thought you're quite busy with all those council jobs." Gilligan sneered sarcastically.

"I know." Alan grumbled, "But I feel like a little kid you know? Getting new powers."

"Powers?" Ed's ears perked up, "Oh yeah, I never ask you about your elements and bloodline power is…"

"The bloodline power is not that powerful…" Alan shrugged, "I can make people not notice me."

"That's… really useful." Ed said.

"For an assassin? Yes, for a politician? No." Alan commented.

"You never know, maybe you could dig some dirt from other politicians."

Alan clicked his tongue in enlightenment, "You know what, that's a good idea… I'll try that."

Ed chuckled, "What's the element?"

"Only one, Illusion." Alan said while he covered a desk near him with red dust, changing it to water.

"Holy mother of Merlin…" Ed gaped in shock, "That's…"

"Right, Alan, don't bother Ed here, you go." Gilligan interrupted, "And turn back the desk, that desk is quite old."

Alan shrugged and turned the desk back to its original state, a desk.

"Right, Ed, you read, I will train Alan here about his element, if you have questions, just write it down." Gilligan continued, Ed just nodded and continued to read the books, while the other two disappeared, training separately.

A few days later, Ed was back in the training room with Gilligan, he had train for almost 3 days now and he already showed progress. The owl was now training him how to do spatial pressure, advancing his knowledge on his element.

"Focus Ed, think that the space around that desk is solidified." Gilligan explained.

Ed then stretched his arm and made a grabbing gesture towards the desk. He cleared his mind with Occlumency and focused on doing the task, pressuring the space around the desk. Slowly but surely, the space around the desk glowed black and blue, particles popped out of nowhere, orbiting the desk like a sphere.

"Is this it?" Ed said, still focusing on the desk.

"That's good Ed, now, think about decreasing the sphere's size, making the desk crushed inside it." Gilligan taught once more.

Ed did what he told, he slowly think that the sphere is getting smaller, and he boost the imagination by making his hand made a crushing gesture. The sphere around the desk was slowly decreasing in size, but when it touched the desk, the particles suddenly scattered, signalling that Ed lost his focus.

"You need to be more focused Ed." Gilligan scolded, "But it's already good enough, only three days and you can learn this much, we'll see how it goes in the next few months."

Ed sighed in relief as he was quite fatigued right now. "Thank you Gilligan."

Gilligan nodded weakly. He was about to leave, but Ed suddenly spoke again.

"Hey Gilligan, I need to ask you something."

Gilligan turned his head 270 degrees to Ed, and said, "What is it?"

"I'm planning to use the enchanting knowledge that is based on the otherworldly knowledge to start up a company that deals with selling magic items."

Gilligan narrowed, "So you're asking my guidance if that is wise or not?"

"Exactly."

Gilligan pondered a while, thinking of all the possibilities, "It should be possible and legal to the Council of worlds, so do what you will."

Ed nodded, "Thank you Gilligan, now I just need to find an adult that wants to do the job…"

"I'm sure you'll manage." Gilligan comforted the boy and disappeared from the room.

Ed sighed, he scratched his head in annoyance while thinking who's the perfect candidate for it, a man that isn't corrupt, somewhat trustworthy, and does not easily blab. He thought of the possible candidates that is known in the books, and thought about one man, Remus Lupin.

Ed smiled at this thought and spoke to himself, "I think he'll do good… he's a bit of a coward though, but it's a magic item company, not a mercenary company, so I guess it's fine…"

Ed sighed and he blinked to his room in the Andrews Mansion, ever since he studied more of the space element, the trace of his magic change slowly to shreds of paper to smoke, a black and blue smoke that sometimes generate lightning, it's only on the small part though as he didn't fully mastered it yet.

Then Ed appeared in his room, it was quite tidy as he didn't really use it anymore, he opened the door towards the corridor and walked to the dining room, looking for a meal. When he passed the kitchen, he saw Anna was cooking, he had missed her cooking, usually it's either Ashbey or a cook that sometimes came to the house that cooked, but now Anna is cooking, which is pretty nice.

"Hello Anna, what are you cooking?" Ed asked as he sat on a bar stool nearby.

"Hello Ed." She greeted back, not looking at him as she's still focused on cooking, "I'm making Yorkshire pudding."

Ed hummed in anticipation when she said the menu, "Nice, say… you know where Roger is?"

"His office as always." She answered, "What do you want with him?"

"I just want to ask some tips on starting up a company."

Anna quickly stopped in her place, "Starting up a company?" she questioned with her eyebrows raised.

"Yeah, I'm planning to start up a company in the wizarding world, I've already planned out what're we going to do, I just need some men to actually do it, I'm still a minor after all."

Anna is still frowning at Ed, but quickly shrugged and continued cooking, "Well, I guess it'll be nice to if you had some training before we actually handed the company to you."

Ed snorted, "I thought the chores was supposed to be the training?"

"What chores?" Anna asked back with an innocent expression, which Ed just shook his head in amusement and walked to Roger's office.

He knocked on the door and opened it, revealing Roger, drinking a cup of tea on his desk.

"Hello Ed." Roger greeted.

"Hello Roger, I wanted to ask you some advice." Ed said while sitting in front of the old man.

Roger raised his eyebrow, "Advice? You never ask me advice."

Ed chuckled, "True, you don't know a thing about magic after all." Ed commented, which made Roger snort. "But in all seriousness though, I need your advice on starting up a company."

"Start-up company?" Roger was surprised at the sudden decision, "I assumed you want to make it in the wizarding world?"

Ed nodded, "Yeah, I'm planning on selling magic items…"

"Well, I don't know about how the wizarding world operates, but I'll tell you my experience when I was young…"

Roger then continued to tell his stories when he was young, both of them laugh, chuckle, and giggle, his not really telling his experiences at this point, he's making jokes, but after a while, it became a bit more serious and he gave useful advice. Time went by and it's almost dinner, Anna had called the two for dinner and both of them went to the dining room, enjoying a hearty dinner and some nice company.