Chương 581: Limitless Path Chapter Six Hundred Three

The rest of the team either worked on the gems or went about handling their own things, with Adam and Bjorn leaving the cargo hold as soon as it was clear that this was going to be a rather long process. Beth tried not to hover, but she was bored enough that she found herself standing around, poking at Val and asking questions that clearly frustrated the tall woman.

The others were much better at ignoring her, except for Sera, but Beth didn't want to go too deep into public displays of affection with such a large audience. The Empyreans debated the purpose of the gems more than they tried to figure out how they fit together, or so it felt to Beth, but the decoding continued for hours, though it didn't take as long as Beth had initially feared.

They were done with the whole thing, at least according to Zel, in just over twelve hours, which might have been some kind of record, but they had a Sage and a Grandmaster in the group, so Beth wasn't giving out too many brownie points.

"It's a storage system," Zel said.

"Right, we already established that," Beth said, rolling her eyes slightly.

"What's it for? You said you thought it was for something specifically, not just a big spatial storage area."

"I believe you'll be pleasantly surprised. First, however, I would suggest having the lupine one fly this ship out of the system," Zel said, rubbing his hands together slightly in a subconscious gesture.

"Well, that's easy," Beth said, tilting her chin up at Blood.

"Right away," the wolf growled, dashing up to the bridge, trailed by a muttering Val. They flew back to the entry point to the system, which was still visible from inside the system as a hovering portal the width of a tall building. Blood flew them through the portal effortlessly, the cruiser emerging back into 'real' space without even a ripple, the team finding the area around them just as empty as when they had first navigated to the coordinates provided by Zane and Fallon.

Blood flew them out of the portal and some distance away before spinning the ship a hundred and eighty degrees and bringing it to a stop relative to the portal. Beth sometimes forgot just how vast even seemingly small distances could be in space, with the ship 'only' about five hundred miles from the portal, though both their sensors and external cameras picked it up quite easily.

"Okay, we're here then. So, the gems?" Beth said, giving Zel a sharp look.

"It should work like so," he muttered, tossing the seven gems lightly in the air so they hovered in the center of the bridge. The gems spun around each other for a moment before he injected a frightful amount of mana, once again reminding Beth that he was a peak Ascended, despite being trapped in a box, before the gems started humming.

The seven gems spun around each other for just another moment before the hum became louder and the suddenly shifted in the air, lining up against each other in a circle before pressing together and condensing. Zel and Mikhail fed in another massive wave of magic to help power whatever the gems were doing and, after a brief instant where they were steady and humming loudly, there was a small flash of light, not enough to blind Beth's enhanced vision, and the gems merged into what looked like a medallion.

It was an object a little larger than Beth's hand with her fingers spread, and the gems were anchored in a substrate of pure mana crystal that glowed a bluish-white color, all seven smaller and more compact and all pressed together in a flat circle. The whole thing looked pretty impressive, and Beth could feel a lot of mana radiating from the new artifact, but she was still questioning what it was really supposed to do when there was a sudden shift in the space around them.

Beth could feel this quite clearly, given her proclivity for spatial mana, and she watched in fascination as the portal to the solar system was pulled towards the cruiser. She would have been concerned about structural damage with how fast the portal was approaching, that an edge might hit or something impact with a lot of force from excess mana, but she watched in awe as the portal shrunk down and warped right in from of the cluster of gems.

After a moment of hovering there, the portal was pulled into the cluster of gems, a faint circle of black and red imprinting in the medallion, the circle passing through the middle of all of the gems. The artifact had shrunk again a bit, now only being about six inches across, still a little too big to wear on a necklace, in Beth's opinion, but something that could fit in a large pocket without much trouble.

The medallion hovered in the middle of the bridge until she shook herself out of her surprise, the first to wake up from the shock, stepping forward and grabbing the medallion. This time, she wasn't presented a choice, as she felt a very similar feeling to when she had obtained the reliquary, realizing that she had just gotten her second incredibly powerful soulbound item.

She examined the medallion in her palm, using her eye power on it to reveal: Medallion of Secret Space {This medallion is a bound artifact created from a special hidden solar system left by the people of Akmen, lost in the Age of Dreams. The artifact is bound to a single individual and may nestle within the hidden pockets of their greater being. The owner may call forth a gateway to anywhere within the pocket space at their will, allowing anyone or anything to enter. The portal may be shut from within, but it retains a trace link to the entrance in real space, and re-opening the portal will recreate it at the same precise coordinates in space}"Well, that's certainly something," Beth said, sending the description to the rest of the team. She could feel the Empyreans present in the bridge do their own examinations, the amount of mana they used, without fear of having to constrain themselves, being large enough to cause slight distortions in the air of the bridge.

"Well, we don't have to worry about taking the cruiser places now, at least," Val said, eying the medallion after reading the description. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Beth pointed and her and snapped her fingers, grinning and saying, "Great point. We should see if the cruiser still fits in the portal."

"You should also test how far away and both how large and small you can make the portal," Zel said, still examining the medallion in Beth's hand.

"It will be very useful to have a good grasp of the limits of such an item. You must also remember that this is creating a portal in space."

"Meaning?" Beth asked, frowning at his last sentence, though she could sort of guess where he was going with it.

"Meaning that you need the physical space to open it as interference with existing materials might end… poorly. Also, keep in mind that, unlike our reliquary, because it is not instant spatial transference but, again, a portal that you must open and move through, it will be more vulnerable to disrupting effects, including enchantments build to interrupt or disable portals in the vicinity.

It is a reason I suspect it is at the Mythic rarity and not higher," Zel explained, several of the other Empyreans nodding at the explanation.

"You should also check over time what happens inside," Mikhail said.

"I have quite a bit of experience of carrying a contained systems, though mine was constructed rather differently, around with me. Yours is the size of a solar system, and its very possible that things will continue to change within the system over time. You also didn't do a very thorough sweep and search of the system itself and you have already encountered one beast at the level of an early Ascended; there may be other hidden dangers lurking within."

"Alright, good thoughts," Beth said.

"Looks like our work on this isn't quite done yet."

"We do have time, though, considering it's now linked to an item that you can carry in your pocket," Andrea pointed out.

"That's right, there's no rush right this second to explore everything, though we do have some more free time on our hands," Sera said.

"Well, we should keep rebirthing. We're pushing towards Ascended, and we keep getting more and more reasons to visit the Eternal Depths, which I don't want to do before we're all at rebirth twenty at a minimum," Beth said.

"I would be very careful, even then," Abigail, who hadn't interacted with them quite as much recently, said.

"You would know the best," Zel said with a slight shake of his head before disappearing back into the reliquary, apparently uninterested in the following conversation, which was mirrored by the other Empyreans that were still on the bridge.

"Why's that?" asked Neph, looking at the short, pretty woman with curiosity.

"Let me give you just a quick explanation," Abigail said, sitting in a chair to the side which was normally occupied by Sera, but the dragon had stolen Beth's seat when she had grabbed the medallion. The rest of the team were already seated, with Blood and Val up at the pilot's station, Adam and Andrea at the small communications hub, Bjorn in one of the huge jump seats in the back, Kris at a secondary seat at tactical that was near Bjorn, and Neph at a station meant to handle the cruiser's weapons.

Beth resumed her seat, plunking herself down in the middle of Sera's lap as the team focused on Abigail.

"You ruled the City of Mended Dreams, right?" Beth asked.

"That's correct. That was a very long time ago, but the city will likely have changed only in size and population, if little else," Abigail responded.

"The city was built around the main entrance to the Eternal Depths, though its not the only way into that strange place. Many, many people live in the city for a vast variety of reasons, not just the access to the Depths that it provides. Part of it is that the city in itself is a gathering place for the powerful, so you have both the hangers-on that flock to where the powerful reside, as well as other powerful beings that live there.

Basically every Exalted in the galaxy has at least a residence there, and its very likely any of the couple Exalted your far-reaching crew hasn't encountered are living there full time.

"The Depths aren't the only attraction, as I stated, and the other big draw is the reason for the city's name itself. The city is built around the entrance to the Depths, true, but the reason the city is named as it is is because of the Great Trial, as it is called. The city itself sits on what you would refer to as a super-Earth, a planet multiple times your home world but still within a certain size and not a gas giant.

The world itself is habitable with only slightly higher gravity than you are used to, part of which is natural and part of which is due to manipulation in the distant past. The Great Trial, also called the Last Walk of Faith, is something that has existed for hundreds of thousands of years. It's a little difficult to describe without the explanation becoming very convoluted, so I'll just summarize.

In Essence, the Last Walk is something that somebody that has has a catastrophic problem with their soul or form can undergo in order to heal them. It is an ordeal, a trial, a test and an atonement, all in one, though going into detail on why certain people consider it certain things might take a few hours.

"Suffice it to say, the world having both the primary entrance to the Eternal Depths, as well as possibly the only way to heal certain types of mental, spiritual, or metaphysical damage, things related to Presence and Mana Physique and Ideal, is why it is the most popular place in the whole galaxy. People go there from not just all over the galaxy, but some from a few surrounding galaxies that either don't have access to something like the Last Walk or the Eternal Depths also gather there.

It is not a strange thing to find Enlightened, Ascended, a tiny handful of Exalted, and even the extremely rare Manumitted, all from other galaxies, spending time in the city. Besides that, many companies and trading houses do business there; I believe you will find the firm you have started working closely with recently has what would be their secondary headquarters in the City of Mended Dreams."

"You mean the Black Ships?" Beth asked, absentmindedly stroking Sera's hands where the dragon was firmly holding her waist as she listened.

"Indeed," Abigail said with a firm nod.

"The Black Ships are far older, richer, and more powerful than you, or almost anyone else, suspects. That you managed to earn their favor and are now a respected partner is something to be celebrated and profoundly valued. Given even a small span of time, I daresay there is nothing they cannot acquire for you, by any one of several means. Their fighting force, a mercenary company directly integrated with the trading firm, is also one of the strongest anywhere.

The Company of the Blue Queen, run by Laselle, is the only force that likely currently matches them, and I would think that Laselle would try to negotiate if they took opposing jobs, only fighting it out as a last resort."

"Laselle's company is strong. She's rich and influential from the Rose establishments scattered around, but she's both respected, and rather feared, because of the mercenary company," Sera added, several of the others, including Val and Kris, nodding firmly at the dragon's words.

"Anyway, to finish from whence we started," Abigail said, having given Sera a nod.

"The Eternal Depths is both unimaginably vast as well as unimaginably dangerous. If I were to explain, every century, thousands of Ascended and up to a few dozen Exalted will enter. Some of them spend enormous amounts of time within, which does make calculations difficult, but the Ascended mortality rate is estimated around thirty percent. Also, most Ascended that enter, though not all, for sure, are above just rebirth twenty.

The fact that a couple Exalted die within the Depths every century should also go a good way to pointing out how dangerous it is, and some of that danger, sadly, is from other people. Because the Depths is a repository of such vast wealth, many people fight over it, though fighting is not allowed in the City of Mended Dreams or on the greater planet, Millennia's Echo.

Still, every year or two, one group will attack another, and these are groups of Ascended we're talking about, and at least a few of them will die without any beast or monster involvement, though saying monsters aren't involved might be a little…"