4. Indefinite Firmament

Where the hell to start? Now, that was the question.

Alright, maybe not. Rory knew there were only two areas to start with. The first was the most obvious: Start from the beginning. Isolate and fold space, yadah, yadah, and boom, inventory. The second area was a little less direct but potentially would save him a lot of time. Rather than start from the beginning, he would begin by establishing a null space. His reasoning was reasonably solid; at least, he thought so. Every part of the process he'd seen as capable at one time or another, from teleportation being the foundation of a bridge through space, the Khan's territory and had it had expanded as space unfolded, even the ability to isolate space, Room Gems allowing a lesser version to occur by 'claiming' space.

The only place he hadn't seen a first-hand example was the idea of a null space.

Sort of.

Two examples fit the bill: the space he entered within his Mind Palace and the empty space one finds oneself in upon an ascension. Rory had begun to suspect for some time now that they weren't purely mental creations that didn't exist as anything more than a sort of induced hallucination. They existed, but not in the typical sense.

Or that was what Rory believed.

Tapping the index finger of his new hand against his thigh, Rory spent several minutes mulling over either direction.

It would be a waste to do everything only to find that creating a null space is impossible.

Deciding on his course, Rory pushed himself out of the seat he had taken, leaving the forge before Gil returned.

I need to think.

The most efficient use of time would be to immediately retreat to his Mind Palace and take advantage of the time dilation. However, sometimes, what one needed wasn't time but inspiration.

So, instead of turning inward, Rory flashed through the city, only turning a few heads. He appeared little more than a blur of colors as he soon raced not into but up his house, taking advantage of the fact that his home was the tallest tree for miles in any direction. Rapidly scaling the towering tree, Rory rested at the very top, cross-legged, as he sat on a platform of hardened Pneuma.

For an hour, he only sat and stared at the forest surrounding Ehkorrus, an endless sea of orange leaves, vines, and thorns.

Space is weird.

That had been true in their old universe and was still true now.

"Null space. Imaginary space? Terms. Names. Titles. Bleh." Rory spoke to himself, letting whatever thoughts occurred naturally spin through his mind before winking out moments later.

His issue was that his literal and conceptual knowledge were mismatched. Concepts? Those he could feel in his bones. He could feel that Null Spaces—the name still to be finalized—were real. Yet his mind disagreed, unable to imagine how.

It wasn't often that his direct understanding and his understanding of concepts felt so misaligned; usually, it was because the things he worked on weren't nearly as abstract and complex. Even determining how to construct a door through space was easier; he wasn't creating pseudo-dimensional pockets, just cutting across space.

For a moment, Rory recalled a face he hadn't thought of in quite some time, his short-lived roommate shortly after the extinction of their universe, Professor Ackaestar. The alien professor had been one of the most intelligent minds of their old universe, at least according to that very same professor.

He'd probably have an easier time understanding.

It was a fanciful thought, but he banished it a moment later. The reality was that he would never see the alien professor again; the unfortunate soul was likely doomed to information decay, becoming pure energy, which would then be recycled into the universe at large, just like all traces from their old universe.

"I'm the adult in the room, the Founder of Ehkorrus and Architect of the Precursors. What's a little inventory to stop me?"

Closing his eyes, Rory finally let himself slip into his Mind Palace. Looking around, Rory was greeted with the fact that the entire place was a bit of a mess. Rory didn't often spend time shaping the mental space into any aesthetic design; it was like a garage of random constructs locked in for easy projection.

Doing something Rory rarely did, he waved a hand as every construct vanished, leaving him in a dark void not unlike the void entered upon an ascension, except for no stars floating in the far distance.

"Hmm, you know, why is that?" Rory muttered. Snapping his new hand, a bit of a metallic clang to the sound, stars flickered to light.

"Let there be light," Rory said before sitting cross-legged like in the real world.

Sitting, Rory squinted at the far-off lights, sighing a moment later.

They weren't really stars. They were indistinct, fuzzy lights floating off in the distance, meant to look like distant stars.

"You know what? No, I want a real star." Rory crossed his arms like a petulant child as he envisioned a star in front of himself. Between his work with the Stellar Heart many years ago and his time undergoing the Trial of Space, it didn't take much effort to form a construct of a star in front of himself, scaled down to human size. It glowed and hummed with power, making Rory smile.

Could I project a mini-star without needing Ehkorrus' reserves now?

He considered it momentarily before shaking his head, more than likely a fool's errand. Going from tier six to seven was a significant upgrade. Still, considering how difficult it had been last time, he figured he'd need tier eight before that was something he could realistically do by himself.

Letting the star dissipate, Rory continued to sit in the dark void of his empty Mind Palace.

"Could I maybe use a charge of Reinterpretation?" Rory considered out loud. It wasn't a terrible idea. Not like he used his Reinterpretations frequently; there weren't many demands to Reinterpret much of anything in the last few years. Or at least anything he might consider as a potential candidate he knew was well outside the scope of what a Reinterpretation allowed for, crossing into Law territory.

"No Reinterpretation then, I've got no Laws on hand, and… yeah, that's about it," Rory said to himself. Bored of sitting, Rory began to float aimlessly within the endless Mind Palace, letting himself lose track of time. It could have been minutes, hours, days, or weeks that Rory let his mind drift aimlessly, trying to grasp the key to his missing comprehension.

Null Space. Imaginary Space. Esoteric space? Maybe Reciprocal Space? Oh, oh, I got it! An Indefinite Firmament!

Did it sound overly complicated? Yes. Is that the exact reason he liked it? Also, yes.

Looking around, now that he had settled on a name, Rory stopped floating, affirming himself within the endless space.

"A space within an Indefinite Firmament. A space that exists and yet doesn't exist simultaneously. Great, but how?"

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Again, his mind turned to the alien professor, puzzling Rory. Usually, when he tried to figure problems out, he didn't so often think of others in the hope that-

"OH. Oh, that's it!" Rory would have jumped had he been in real space. His mind wasn't drifting back to the professor because he wished someone else would swoop in and solve his problems.

His subconscious was nudging him, reminding him that it wasn't two but three times he had experienced what it was like being inside an Indefinite Firmament.

Realizing that the space he'd cohabited with the professor could have likely been categorized as an Indefinite Firmament, his mind shifted, preconceived notions abandoned, and new thoughts took their place. Initially, he had assumed that an Indefinite Firmament would require some conscious thought to anchor itself. Upon reconsideration, Rory realized that it wasn't thought that anchored the spaces but physical reality itself.

"Ascensions and my Mind Palace don't exist within my thoughts; they quite literally exist as a point anchored to my physical being. The waiting room I was in with the professor wasn't anchored to some specific thought but to the literal energy that remained after the collapse. You can't form something from absolutely nothing."

Rory paused. Something about what he had just said itched at him, but he ignored it, unsure of what or why.

"An entire world within a single point of real space. Sounds a bit like singularity theory." Rory said, recalling arguments in their old universe that the entire universe was contained within the heart of a black hole. Based on everything that had happened with the collapse of their universe, Rory felt the theory was well and truly debunked, but the thought was still interesting.

As he began to see a roadmap forming, Rory voiced his thoughts out loud, which he always found conducive to planning and thinking.

"Once I've isolated and folded space into itself, I'll need to transplant that folded space inside an Indefinite Firmament. On its own, it likely wouldn't be stable, hence why I can't store actual physical things within my Mind Space, but if the Indefinite Firmament is specifically 'expanded' into an item capable of sustaining such energies and concepts, it should remain stable for…. Long, however long that might be."

Finally, feeling like he had something to work with, Rory pushed his thoughts forward.

What do I have that should match the concepts at play?

Thankfully, it wasn't a tricky question to answer; the Void Diamond was the obvious answer, and as a bonus, he had already imagined using it as the vessel for the Inventory project in whatever form it took.

Find a stable anchor point within the Void Diamond and establish an Indefinite Firmament before injecting the folded space, which will be the physical 'inventory' inside it. Then, establish a bridge or tunnel between the two.

After spending an indeterminate amount of time considering the finer details, Rory finally emerged from his Mind Palace, blinking a few times as he gathered his bearings.

Nighttime.

Knowing it was night, Rory decided to find out how long he'd spent within his Mind Palace the next day. Descending the massive tree that housed his home, Rory slipped inside. He could go to bed, but after spending so much time planning and working out the details of his plan, Rory was impatient. Entering his room, he quickly snatched the Void Diamond from the shelf where it was placed, inspecting it with the Eyes of the Architect turned to maximum. Examining the diamond with the same careful eye he would when working on a gem, Rory noted that the Void Diamond had a ludicrous number of convergence points. Splitting his mental threads and utilizing his rather extraordinary cognition investment, Rory could count ridiculously fast.

And even then, he stopped counting at eighteen thousand points, making up barely a percent of the overall surface area.

Dear god, I can only imagine how insane a gem made from a master-grade jewel or precious stone would be.

For a moment, Rory considered what a Room Gem crafted from the Void Diamond would be like. Could he claim an entire planetary space in an ironclad hold? Or, more likely, something even more profound?

"Not that it matters," Rory muttered. A massive part of gem crafting was mapping each convergence point against every other directly connected convergence point. With a lowball estimate of two or so million convergence points for the void diamond, Rory doubted he'd manage before losing all focus and track of where he had been.

Rather than attempt to map out each convergence point as if he were making a proper gem, Rory turned his attention to finding the most 'stable' point within the diamond, looking for immutability. Ironically, Seams Unseen made the entire process take far less time.

The skill's purpose was typically to allow him to easily perceive the seams within nearly anything. However, by nature of its purpose, it also had the unintended opposite effect of making it easier to determine where the most resistant points were, as Seams Unseen seemed almost disgusted by their stability.

Personifying a skill sounds like a fast track to a mental asylum. Still, there aren't any mental asylums, so we're all clear.

Finding several candidates, Rory eventually locked onto a single one. It wasn't that the point was necessarily the most stable point throughout the entire diamond; it was just that, with over two million convergence points at the minimum, Rory had no interest in finding the perfect candidate if even one percent were flagged, as that still left over two thousand points to decide between.

With a point locked down, Rory pondered briefly how to expand the point into something more.

No point in overcomplicating things.

With a shrug, he reached outward while focusing on the same sense that he felt when diving into his Mind Palace.

The good news was that Rory felt something react. As if, for a moment, he had grasped onto something like a metaphysical ledge or handle.

The bad news was that a concussive blast of pain ripped through his mind. It reminded Rory of the feeling of running headfirst into a wall or a low-hanging ceiling, except rather than hitting his physical head, he'd smacked his inner mind on a metaphysical wall.

"Ow," Rory winced, holding his head. "Alright, not that simple, or maybe not that easily brute-forced."

Reaching out more carefully, Rory slowly attempted to grasp the point with his intent. Rather than rushing inward, as he had when he utilized his Mind Palace, Rory turned that feeling around, trying to pull outward, like pulling out a mattress from a pull-out couch. More firmly grasping a 'ledge,' Rory could momentarily sense the point slowly drawing outward.

Before snapping back, once again causing Rory to wince.

"Not enough mental muscle," Rory noted. "So, time to cheat."

Rummaging through where he stored several miscellaneous crafting-related items, Rory found a few Room Gems. Taking them and the void diamond, Rory left his home and crept through the nighttime Ehkorrus as he made his way to the communal bound circle. It was one of the first major 'projects' Rory had ever completed in his first few years on Aelia. While he used it far less now that he'd gotten better with Pneuma, it was still a very commonly used utility, allowing for easy pneuma isolation, attunement, or other beneficial uses.

Within a few minutes, Rory stood outside the bound circle; the open-air concept that many of their public facilities favored made it relatively simple to 'sneak' in. In the future, Rory suspected there would likely be more security so that people couldn't willy-nilly do precisely what he was doing. Still, it wasn't pressing for the time, nor was it a concern to Rory, who would be leaving shortly and to whom such measures wouldn't be applicable, given his status as the city founder.

Placing a room gem atop several braziers, Rory entered the ring with the void diamond held in his hands. Snapping once, a red light flashed briefly as the gems vanished in the same instant, the ring now glowing with a bright red and silver light. It was an addition he had made some time back, the ability for the ring to consume gems, taking advantage of the temporary nature of gems to supercharge their potency while inversely undercutting their lifespan to a fraction of what they typically lasted, minutes at best.

The space within the ring was firmly locked under his tight control, even the flow of Pneuma barely moving against his designs. Taking advantage of the control, Rory attempted to pull at the stable point within the void gem once more. Whereas it was once like a locked door that had been rusted shut for good measure, now Rory felt like it was just a snugly shut door, annoying to pry open but not nearly as much of a hassle as it had been before.

Knowing that the level of tight control he had would only last a few minutes max, Rory didn't waste time as he slowly began to expand the stable point. It wasn't that the singular point was growing larger outwardly; the space within it grew, like trying to open a drawer only for the drawer's interior to expand inward rather than outward. If it had not been for the space and void-aligned nature of the diamond, trying to expand a point in the way he was would have caused the entire item to disintegrate as it was destabilized. Still, the void diamond was perfect for that.

And so, only two minutes later, Rory felt a snap as the point clicked into place. Without trying, Rory fell, not in physical space, but past the Indefinite Firmament, floating in an expanse of darkness. Unlike his Mental Palace or the ascension void, Rory could distinctly sense a clear limit, even if the space looked endless. It was ten, maybe twenty meters in any direction, forming a decently large globe.

"Hot damn, it worked," Rory said. Pleased with himself, Rory let go, his mind flowing back into his physical body.

Three things became instantly apparent as Rory returned to his physical body. He was tired, as in 'fall asleep on your feet mid-sentence' tired. Second, the once stable point was now impossible to miss; it seemed to scream out to his senses, like noticing a large cave opening in the side of a sandstone cliff.

Third, a notification was flashing before his eyes. As much as Rory wanted to check it out, he dismissed it.

If I don't go home now, I WILL pass out.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this tired without first engaging in a serious battle.

Dragging himself back home, Rory wobbled on his feet as he staggered inside his treehouse. Nearing his bed, he couldn't hold back any longer, literally passing out mid-step. Luck favoring him for the moment, his unconscious body barely collapsed into his bed, a deep snore the only sound to announce his return home.

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