With the collapse of the Singularity, history had been restored, and Morpheus and the others' bodies had long since departed along with that collapse, returning to Chaldea.
Morpheus saw the others waiting for him. Clearly, he was the last to return, after all, he had chatted with Bedivere for a while over there.
"Your body..." Medea approached, reaching out to gently touch Morpheus's chest. Up in the control room, Olga Marie saw this and widened her eyes slightly, then snorted coldly and turned away, muttering under her breath, "Shameless!"
Nearby, Roman heard the words and gave Olga Marie a helpless look, then glanced at Da Vinci, who was watching the show. He spread his hands and shrugged.
Medea took the opportunity to grab at Morpheus's chest, feeling those sturdy muscles, and revealed a hint of excitement. Morpheus looked on helplessly and said, "In front of everyone, really!"
"So what? You and I are a couple, and everyone knows it!" Medea said nonchalantly, grabbing again. Ritsuka couldn't help but snicker at the sight, while Mash watched with great curiosity, as if viewing some kind of drama.
"Enough joking around. Your body feels like it's undergone some changes, almost like..." Medea put away her smile and carefully sensed the man before her, "like your status has suddenly been elevated!"
"I've advanced..." Morpheus nodded honestly. "It happened just now while I was chatting with the Lion King."
"During a chat?" Medea couldn't help but widen her eyes.
She had heard of breakthroughs during battles and studies... but never during a casual conversation with someone.
"I tried to analyze the power of the Holy Lance Rhongomyniad, then used that portion of power to fill in the blanks in my knowledge. I successfully created a new phase, and in the process, I gained a better understanding of the knowledge Shiva left behind. As a result, I advanced."
Morpheus's explanation was very straightforward, but in reality, it couldn't have been that simple.
"You created a new phase?!" Medea probably understood Morpheus's magic better than anyone, so upon hearing his words, she finally grasped what he had done.
Morpheus had created a world and overlaid this mirror-like world onto the existing one!
"I utilized the Sefirot and Qliphoth to create a chaotic Singularity, guiding down the infinite light of divinity, and retraced the path of creation once more..." Morpheus said softly, like a student afraid of being scolded. "I didn't expect it to succeed."
Medea stared at Morpheus with wide eyes. "You're insane!"
Morpheus smiled. "See? It worked, didn't it?"
"And if it had failed? This time, you weren't just channeling a bit of power for a regular attack... you were using it for creation. Even with the help of the Holy Lance Rhongomyniad, and even though you were only creating a phase, relying on the Lion King's status to stabilize it, that's still creation. One slip, and you could have been backlash-ed into oblivion!"
Medea started scolding him outright, her eyes full of worry. Morpheus said nothing, obediently letting her vent.
Medea's concern was justified; this was an act of creation, and the infinite power channeled demanded true infinity.
If that force got out of control, it would be equivalent to world-ending destruction.
Though with Morpheus's current strength, he certainly couldn't reach world-ending levels... he'd be gone first, causing the magic to fail and preventing any major catastrophe.
Even the shock from his death would likely kill the Lion King, and history would still be corrected, so in essence, it wouldn't affect the outcome of restoring history.
But no matter what, the cost would inevitably be his own death.
Yet Morpheus had actually gambled on it... and won!
"It's actually fine. After all, I did receive Shiva's gift, and Shiva inherently embodies concepts of creation. Now, I'm a legitimate 7=4 grade Adeptus Exemptus, reaching the pinnacle of humanity!" Morpheus said, proudly patting his chest.
The pinnacle of humanity... the peak that humans could achieve. To go further would require shedding one's human form, elevating one's status to a non-human realm.
After finishing her scolding, Medea had calmed down a bit. She continued sensing the changes in Morpheus's body and whispered, "No, your ascension isn't complete yet, is it?"
Morpheus looked at her in some surprise. "You noticed?"
"How could I not? I was once infused with the power of the Scarlet Woman, after all. I can still see some things. You've advanced, but it's not finished... like you've stepped in halfway, with the other half still outside. In this state, you can't truly wield the power of the 7=4 grade, can you?"
Morpheus nodded lightly, acknowledging Medea's guess. At that moment, seeing no further conflict between the two, the others gathered around.
Jeanne Alter asked, "What does 7=4 mean?"
"It means very powerful... among humans, no one should be able to beat me," Morpheus replied simply. "With my current power, we might not even need any plans moving forward. We could face Goetia directly."
Even if he couldn't yet unleash the full power of humanity's pinnacle, with Morpheus's strength now, when he channeled his magic, the maximum output could reach hundreds of times what it was before.
And that was under the premise of keeping things stable to avoid issues. If he disregarded those concerns, the boost could be on the order of millions.
The elevation in grade brought an extremely exaggerated increase in power.
After all, if he could truly reach a stable 7=4 grade, the power he could channel would shake the universe itself!
Because at that point, he could summon full-bodied archangels, and full-bodied archangels could shake the entire world. Since he was the one summoning them, it naturally counted as him shaking the world.
Flawless logic!
Ritsuka also asked curiously, "Specifically? How much stronger have you become?"
"Roughly hundreds of times my original self."
"Hundreds of times?!" Ritsuka's mouth opened slightly in surprise, and she immediately raised her hand as if to calculate just how strong that made Morpheus, but then gave up, finding it too hard to compute.
On the other side, upon hearing this, Roman immediately looked at Da Vinci. Da Vinci quickly calculated and showed a dazed expression. "I remember he could already inflict planet-destroying damage, right?"
Roman nodded lightly, and Olga Marie nodded right away too. She had heard Medea scolding Morpheus earlier but had relaxed after confirming he was fine, now shifting her attention to the specifics of his power changes.
"Let's assume Morpheus's original power base was stellar-level. Now, after a hundreds-fold increase, we might need to add new classification categories."
"New categories?"
"In stellar-scale classifications, our original stellar-level is based on the sun's output per second. But in reality, with Morpheus at full strength, summoning the four arcgangels without holding back, he could directly destroy Earth. That kind of power already exceeds our defined stellar-level. After all, at the sun's output, destroying Earth would require charging for about twenty hours."
Olga Marie watched the data files Da Vinci pulled up while listening, knowing she was right.
The destruction mentioned here wasn't just evaporating Earth's oceans or blasting away the global surface... it was true, utter shattering of the planet, like a glass marble smashed to pieces.
Even in Chaldea, where this was defined under an unconventional stellar-level, it would still require over twenty hours of buildup.
Of course, if a stellar-level entity could fully concentrate their energy for a pinpoint attack, piercing a planet wouldn't be that hard... but that would be cheating.
Morpheus was different; his original power could easily destroy Earth, equivalent to channeling about a day's worth of the sun's energy in mere seconds.
And now, his power had increased hundreds of times on top of that!
Just how terrifying was this force?
"Assuming a five-hundred-fold increase, it's roughly equivalent to him unleashing in an instant the energy the sun releases over a year," Da Vinci said.
Unleashing in an instant the energy of a star like the sun over a full year...
The number weighed on everyone's minds, plunging the command room into silence.
The figures were easy to grasp, and the scale of energy was straightforward... after all, the sun was something they saw every day.
But hearing that one person could release a year's worth of the sun's energy in a moment left them all struggling to accept it.
And this was still human?!
This, and he was saying he was still human, not yet stepping into the domain of gods?!
Now, Chaldea's classifications like divine-level or chief god-level seemed like a joke!
And according to Da Vinci, they really would need to carefully redefine subsequent tiers based on Morpheus's situation.
"Actually, it's unnecessary." Suddenly, Morpheus appeared before them, as if he had teleported there without even passing through the door. Seeing their surprised looks, Morpheus smiled. "Just a little magic trick."
Even if unstable, he was now 7=4, capable of truly achieving something like shrinking the earth to an inch!
"The grade elevation brings a surge in power, but that power stems from knowledge. I'm still human; I can't make you feel some superhuman force contained within me like with Servants... that's impossible. So no need to keep classifying.
"Besides, once I stabilize the 7=4 realm, my power will increase further. If you really want to classify it, it'd be too troublesome. At that point, by your thinking, I'd probably fall into the universe category."
Seeing Morpheus say this, the others could only drop it.
Da Vinci shook her head with a smile. "True, too much hassle. From sun-level stellar to supermassive black hole levels, there are too many tiers to cross... And if you can step into universe-level in an instant, classifying the middle would just waste my brainpower and serve no purpose."
"But can 7=4 reach universe-level?!" Olga Marie said doubtfully. "You're talking about the physical universe, right?"
The universe as spoken of by magi sometimes conflicted with the physical one... like the planet's inner sea or stellar eggs, which to magi were universes that could grow into independent worlds.
But Morpheus's world wasn't like that; universe meant universe, planets meant planets.
Morpheus nodded. "The essence of 7=4 is touching the infinite with the finite. Even if it's not much you can touch, it's still infinite, and it represents death... rebirth in cycle. This constant turning is also a symbol of infinity.
"Of course, as I said, it's touching the infinite with the finite. Even after the baptism of death and rebirth concepts, when it's time to die, you still die. There's no avoiding it, since you haven't truly separated from the concept of death."
As Morpheus spoke, he lightly raised his hand. It looked strange now... clearly solid, yet with an afterimage.
"I'm requesting permission to go to the temple for the ritual. I need to stabilize my grade as soon as possible."
After saying this, he looked at Olga Marie. The girl had just nodded in agreement when Morpheus smiled and vanished from the spot.
...
Morpheus looked at the temple, untouched and uncleaned since last time... when he had summoned Shiva... and took a deep breath.
He stepped forward, then took out the ritual tools.
They were the seal of Jupiter, the Eye of Osiris, and the Holy Grail.
The Holy Grail was filled with red wine, and then the altar was set up.
In the center of the altar was a statue of Osiris and a pillar. The pillar had a peculiar design with an ancient Egyptian aura... it was the Djed pillar, representing stability and eternity.
To the left was a blue candle, representing Jupiter; to the right, a golden lotus, representing benevolence.
Left for Osiris, right for Tzadkiel.
An Egyptian deity and an Enochian angel, coexisting in this moment!
In front was a tapestry of the Tree of Life, upon which the fourth and sixth Sephirot shimmered with light.
Everything was prepared; it was time for the true advancement ritual!
Morpheus smiled, then raised his hand like a devout believer, chanting his unique incantation.
"In the name of Sandalphon, may the power of the earth protect this domain; by the mercy of Tzadkiel, may the light of Jupiter fill this space."
The power of the Sephirot flowed out in that moment, filling the temple!
***
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