There may also be some inaccuracies, since English is not my native language.
Essentially, TBATE is first translated from English into my native language - and in that process, some details are already altered to make it more understandable for us. Now I'm taking that adapted (and somewhat distorted) version, revising it, rewriting it, and then translating it back into English.
I hope you'll point out any mistakes in the text that I might have missed.
× × × × ×
Lucius Zogratis POV
"Ugh…" I slowly opened my eyes, feeling the unpleasant numbness in my leg.
"You're awake," a familiar voice came from my right.
Slowly and with obvious reluctance, I turned my head. My consciousness was still drowning in an overwhelming torrent of information, and even that simple movement did not come easily. Arthur and Regis stood to my right, watching my awakening with undisguised interest.
"How much time has passed?" I asked hoarsely.
"A little over half an hour," Regis answered at once, wagging his tail as he stepped closer.
"How do you feel?" Arthur asked, offering me a hand when I tried to get to my feet, swaying slightly.
"Like I got run over by a truck… three times," I muttered, still somewhat disoriented. "Give me a couple of minutes to get my head straight… That was strange."
After catching my breath a little and somehow calming the storm of memories and emotions raging inside me, I once again reached with my consciousness toward the Blessed Land within my core and almost immediately felt a strange connection to it with perfect clarity. For a few seconds, I froze, listening to that sensation, and then instinctively shifted my attention to the amount of aether essence.
In that same moment, I realized that it had already fully recovered during those few short minutes while I had been trying to collect myself after what I had experienced.
The black-and-white flame.
I noted it mentally, still not entirely trusting my own senses. That speed of recovery was abnormal, almost unsettling… but then again, who was I to complain about a gift like that?
Realizing that my запас of aether essence was once again full to the brim, I did not hesitate and immediately put it to use. I spent that restored energy on adding several hundred more varieties of monster essences to the Voice of the World-primitive templates still far from fully manifesting in the world. For the near future, though, that did not matter: both the function that would allow them to appear and the catastrophe that occurred once every twenty-five years remained disabled for now.
The Voice of the World itself, if I was being honest, was still extremely raw, unfinished, and limited in what it could do. There was nothing surprising in that, however: when I had created it, I had allocated comparatively little aether to it, fearing exhaustion and trying to distribute my strength as cautiously as possible. But now, seeing the insane speed at which aether essence recovered, I understood that I had worried for nothing.
Shaking my head once, I lowered myself to the ground into a lotus position and submerged my consciousness into the Blessed Land, involuntarily marveling at the sight that opened before me.
I watched the weather change over this strange little world. The sky seemed to have a life of its own, even though I knew full well that I couldn't influence it; clouds raced across it at incredible speed, as if I were watching a video in fast-forward, and their shadows swiftly glided across the ground, one after another. In some places, storm clouds were gathering; in others, light was breaking through; in still others, snow was already falling, and the whole scene looked both majestic and slightly unreal.
But what caught me most was how quickly the Na'vi, who had appeared from practically every direction, began moving across the land in search of a safe place.
They still understood almost nothing. All of them were naked, confused creatures newly brought into the world, with no experience, no knowledge, and not even the vaguest idea of what was happening around them. Their movements were full of fear, curiosity, and primitive caution. They often looked around, clustered together, stopped for no reason at all, and listened to the forest—to the rustling, the strange cries, to all those things that as yet had no names for them, but were already perceived as potential threats.
Many of them eagerly reached out to everything they were seeing for the first time: grass, rocks, water, unfamiliar plants. They explored the world around them literally by touch, taste, and smell, immediately sharing their impressions with one another with the sincerity that only children possess. One carefully plucked a leaf and put it in his mouth, immediately wincing at its bitterness, which caused surprise and laughter among the others. Another, on the contrary, found bushes with edible berries, and his delight instantly spread throughout the group; they immediately memorized what these berries looked like and began picking similar ones, no longer trying to eat the grass and dirt.
Some gently touched the water's surface. Others picked up stones, examined them, sniffed them, and even bit them.
I watched them stop, exchange careful glances, discuss what they had seen, and then move on again, driven by curiosity one moment and fear the next. Sometimes one would find something interesting-for example, berries that had little taste, but when crushed in the hands could be smeared onto stones, skin, and trees in an attempt to leave marks leading back to places where tasty fruit had been found-and the others would immediately gather around.
At other times, it was enough for one of them to flinch in fear or hear a distant roar for the entire small group to bolt at once, obeying the same shared impulse without even fully understanding what exactly they were fleeing from.
And what I liked most were their faces in those moments when they noticed some new beast. Their eyes would widen, and in them there would flare surprise, anxiety, and genuine delight. Those who had found the fruit that could be used as paint had already begun trying to sketch what they saw on strips of torn bark.
For them, every step could turn into either a threat or a miracle. The world in which they had found themselves was too vast, too alive, too saturated with the unfamiliar to be taken calmly. And that almost childlike wonder that arose even against a background of fear amused me despite myself.
I watched them for only about ten minutes of real time.
But in the Blessed Land, where time flowed differently, exactly two days and fourteen hours passed during that short interval.
And in that time, much had already changed.
Some of the larger groups of Na'vi had traveled more than a hundred kilometers, moving forward without rest in search of places where predators were fewer, water was closer, and shelter was more reliable. Those who only recently had stood helplessly glancing around were already beginning to develop their first primitive behavior patterns. They were learning to stay in groups. Learning to distinguish dangerous sounds. Learning to read one another's moods through looks, gestures, and intonation. Several times I saw some instinctively shielding others-the weaker ones-even though they themselves likely did not yet understand why they were doing it. But the foundation of future community was already taking shape.
What drew my attention most of all were two clans that had emerged in the jungle.
Their path had been unfortunate from the very beginning. They rather quickly ran into a pulukann-a beast whose mere appearance was enough to sow panic even among trained fighters, let alone those who had only just learned to walk through this world without their knees trembling.
I watched as that massive creature pursued them through the dense undergrowth, smashing through the brush and leaving behind a path of twisted branches and torn-up earth. The Na'vi ran in a disorganized, almost unconscious way, driven by nothing but pure survival instinct. Some screamed. Some dragged the stragglers along by the hand. Some fell, scrambled back up, and hurled themselves forward again, nearly choking with terror.
And yet it was precisely that panicked, utterly planless flight that led them where they needed to go.
To a Clan Home.
When the first of them burst out of the dense jungle and ran toward its roots, they did not yet understand what they were seeing. The enormous tree, resembling a colossal living pillar, rose from the earth to a height of just under a kilometer, something between a sanctuary, a temple, and the heart of an entire tribe that did not yet even realize it would one day become a tribe. Its trunk was so broad that it was difficult to describe in words, and its semi-hollow inner structure made it resemble a natural fortress and a home at the same time.
The Na'vi stumbled inside almost mindlessly, simply desperate to hide.
And then exactly what I had expected happened.
The pulukann that had pursued them with such furious determination stopped.
It did not merely slow down. No-the beast truly did not dare approach that place. It circled at a distance, lashing its tail in irritation, growling, baring its teeth, but it did not cross the invisible boundary.
"Works perfectly," I thought.
The Na'vi themselves did not understand it immediately. At first they simply huddled together in the brightly bioluminescent interior of the tree, breathing heavily, still unable to believe that the chase had truly ended. But gradually, as the minutes passed and the monster still did not dare come any closer, fear began to recede, giving way first to disbelief, then to cautious relief, and finally to reverent awe.
It was that very evening that they finally understood what a Clan Home was-and why they had kuru.
Until then, that part of their bodies had been nothing more than a strange, incomprehensible appendage, something whose existence was taken for granted but not understood as meaningful. But fear, exhaustion, the need for protection, and the instinctive sense that what stood before them was not merely a tree but something greater pushed them toward their first real step.
When they connected themselves to the Clan Home, many things fell into place.
One by one, at first timidly, almost by accident, and then with growing confidence, they established the bond, and in that moment something flowed into them through it-something that could not be conveyed in ordinary words. Not knowledge in the usual sense. More a feeling of understanding. An echo of belonging.
I watched it with quiet interest, feeling a strange satisfaction rise within me. In some sense, everything was going even better than I had expected. Of course, countless difficulties still awaited them, but the most important thing had already happened.
They had begun to bind themselves to the world through kuru, and they had understood its potential.
And watching that almost childlike, naive, but so vividly alive beginning, I found myself smiling. I had to admit, I liked the sight.
Deciding that, for the moment, this was enough, I mentally withdrew from the Blessed Land, and when I opened my eyes I saw Regis and Arthur still sitting calmly nearby.
Stretching slightly and cracking my stiff joints a couple of times with pleasure, I finally turned my gaze to Arthur and Regis, who had not taken their eyes off me the entire time. Judging by their expressions, both had long been waiting for me to fully come back to myself and start saying something useful instead of simply lying there with the look of a man who had first been run over and then, for some reason, brought back to life.
"Half an hour, huh? Not much."
"Any side effects?" Arthur asked immediately.
Without any hurry, I leaned back onto the ground, folded my hands behind my head, and stared up at the starry sky. The night was surprisingly calm. After everything I had just experienced, that silence felt almost unreal.
"No, nothing serious. Except that maintaining this world will consume a bit of soul energy, so for some time you may feel sluggish. Otherwise, it's all clean."
"Can you explain everything in order?" Arthur asked, calmer now.
"I can," I replied. "Let's start with the simplest part: the World Seed contains unbelievably concentrated aether. So concentrated that we didn't even realize it was aether at all. Once the seed unfolds, a literal sea of information will pour into your head-about what can be done, how it can be done, and within what limits. I'm warning you now, there will be a lot of information."
I fell silent for a moment, recalling my own sensations, and involuntarily grimaced-even with a rank-10 intellect and the ability to hold more than forty streams of thought at once.
"And honestly, that flood of information is what hits the brain hardest. Not because it is painful in itself, but because there is simply too much of it. In a single moment, you realize that an almost separate system of existence, with countless internal connections, laws, and possibilities, has suddenly appeared inside your core."
I paused for a second, gathering my thoughts.
"The inner space itself is divided into the main space and several additional ones," I continued. "The main space is, essentially, the world you shape. The foundation, the landscape, the continents, the seas, the oceans, the cycles. That is where the main life will unfold, where everything will grow, move, die, and develop."
I turned my head slightly toward Arthur.
"Above that main space are the other layers. There is the space of day and night-a layer responsible for the cycle of light, the movement of heavenly bodies, the length of the day, the shades of the sky, and all the other cosmic nonsense that is there purely for show and without which the world would look like an unfinished stage set. There is the space of life-the place where all the inhabitants of your world go after death. What exactly happens to them there depends on your settings, your laws, and on how badly you want to play the benevolent god. And then there is the space of rules-probably the most interesting part of the entire structure."
I smirked and went on.
"It is through the space of rules that you can configure the world itself almost however you please. Not without limits, of course, but within what the seed, your soul, and your energy reserves are able to support. In essence, it is the place where you write the fundamental laws of the world."
"However you please?!" Regis immediately cut in, his eyes practically lighting up.
I turned toward him with the most serious expression I could manage.
"However I please. For example, I made one small continent where the temperature constantly stays at thirty-four degrees Celsius, but every day it snows in the shape of tits. Strictly for research purposes, of course."
Regis nodded with the deepest seriousness. "I understand, master."
"I believe you," Arthur said dryly. "Now get to the point."
With one tone of voice, he managed to kill the entire atmosphere of the greatest scientific discovery imaginable. A real talent.
"All right, to the point, then," I sighed. "Next comes the aether realm. If the main space is the body of the world, then the aether realm is its energetic heart. An enormous space where an ocean of pure aether literally sloshes around. It contains the power of all four edicts and allows you to manipulate aether almost without limits. If you really want, you can even create life there… though the cost would make you lose enthusiasm very quickly."
Arthur frowned slightly, listening intently, and I continued.
"Besides that, the aether realm contains exactly as much aether as your soul and the World Seed are capable of withstanding. No more. To replenish that space, soul energy and aetheric energy are consumed. They collide, interact, and give rise to pure aether. Very crudely speaking-it is almost like a nuclear reaction, just without the mushroom cloud."
"The three branches of aether," Regis inserted at once with the air of an expert, though to his credit, he had at least waited until I finished.
I turned my head toward him.
"Four."
"Three," he repeated stubbornly.
"Four," I answered with equal stubbornness. "My godrune of theft does not fit any of the descriptions of the known edicts. So either the theories of the asuras and djinn are incomplete, or I am simply so magnificent that I break classification by the mere fact of my existence."
Regis snorted, but did not argue further.
Arthur, ignoring our verbal squabbling, asked thoughtfully, "Can anything be taken out of that space? And can someone be thrown into it?"
"Very easily," I replied. "In essence, it works like a perfect door. You can throw absolutely anything in there and retrieve it just as easily. More than that, inside that space you are practically a god. If you want, you set a rule. For example: 'Every fifty years, all resources must be fully restored.' And that's it. The world adjusts itself accordingly."
"Just like that?" Arthur frowned.
"Not just like that. Everything is paid for with concentrated aether essence, which is created from aether and soul energy. That is what goes into forming complex structures, implementing rules, maintaining stable processes, and everything that cannot simply be shaped out of raw matter. The larger the change, the higher the cost. The more complex the law, the more resources it devours. The longer it has to function autonomously, the more carefully everything must be integrated."
"And one more thing," I continued. "You can also configure time inside that world. For example, right now, in mine, one year there equals one day here. It is convenient if you need to quickly advance the development of some region, test how certain cycles will function, observe the behavior of lifeforms over the long term, or simply grow the resources you need at accelerated speed."
"Convenient," Arthur murmured quietly, thoughtfully stroking his chin.
"Yeah. But don't get too excited," I said, raising a finger. "All of this has its limits. When creating something or someone inside the world, you cannot make a being that is too powerful. It must always be at least two levels below the World Seed itself. That is one of the basic safeguards built into its foundation. And there is something else… because of the overwhelming amount of pure aether concentrated in one of those spaces, it can be used for more than just sustaining the world or setting the rules of its existence."
"Logical," Arthur nodded, still looking deeply thoughtful. "And what else can it be used for?"
I felt my lips curl into a faint smile.
"As I said only moments ago, every kind of aether is present there, and you can manipulate it however you wish. With Spatium, for example, you can create and anchor portals inside that space, or even keep entire islands suspended in the air. With Vivum, it becomes even more interesting: you can create something that previously existed only in your imagination and then literally breathe life into it. You will not understand aether as deeply and naturally as you understand godrunes, but inside that space you will have control over all aspects of aether."
"More than that, the higher the radiance of the seed-or its rank, if you prefer to call it that-the more resources, possibilities, and space it contains. But the more heavily it also presses on your core and soul. You did notice that my World Seed looked different from yours, didn't you?"
Arthur silently nodded.
I exhaled, closed my eyes, and continued, bending the truth a little.
"And honestly, that was almost a mistake. I just got lucky that my soul turned out to be strong enough not to tear under the strain. I can still feel that pressure. And really, that is hardly surprising… considering that the area of this world is a little over one billion four hundred million square kilometers."
For a few seconds, silence fell.
Then Arthur and Regis both stared at me as though I had just declared that I had personally eaten the moon.
"How much?!" they asked in unison.
I lazily opened one eye.
"One billion four hundred million square kilometers."
In truth, I had lied a little. Not by much-the world really should have been around that size, but the black-and-white flame had meddled a little with the rules and the result had turned out… unconventional. Still, I was far too lazy to get into those details right now, and I had no desire to discuss them with anyone.
"You want one like that too?" I asked innocently.
Arthur looked at me as though trying to determine whether I was mocking him or not. "Isn't that… too much?"
Regis shifted his gaze from the sky to me and back again, as though trying to estimate the scale by the stars.
"If I remember correctly, the area of Dicathen is about 2.2 million square kilometers, right?" he said slowly. "And you are telling me that you can control, by sheer force of thought, a space… roughly six hundred times larger?"
He paused briefly, then let out an impressed breath. "Cool."
[Dicathen ~2.2 million km²]
[Alacrya ~4.0 million km²]
[Epheotus ~1.0 million km² or less]
I pressed my lips together slightly and kept up the nonsense, because my own soul was more than strong enough, while I was far less certain about Arthur's and had no desire to risk it unnecessarily.
"Well… something like that. Though, as I already said, it is extremely taxing. It literally presses on the soul by the mere fact of existing. So I'll ask again: do you want one like that?"
"No," Arthur answered without the slightest hesitation. "That is too much strain, and honestly, I simply don't need a world that huge. I'm not planning to play god."
I watched him in silence for a few seconds, then gave a quiet huff.
"As you wish. But there is still something I want to say: you could place Sylvie's egg in there so she can rest, and try directing part of that world's aether into the egg. As I said before, but I'll repeat it once more: the pure aether inside that realm is born from your soul, your own aether, and the way the World Seed itself functions. Put simply, by using one unit of aether from your core and one unit of the power of your soul, that place can generate twenty units of concentrated pure aether of every possible branch. And that aether is dozens of times purer than the aether inside our cores. So if this truly works, the result could be incredible. But you should not rush it."
Seeing one of his eyebrows rise questioningly, I continued, looking straight into his hope-filled eyes.
"I don't want to break your heart, but we are in Alacrya right now. If she revives, where exactly are you planning to hide a dragon? And before you suggest leaving her inside the World Seed, let me ask you something else: are you really sure the World Seed will not seal itself forever if someone damages your aether core? Until either you or I understand it better, it is best not to push things to that sort of risk. Better to simply test whether that egg can be filled with aether, and if everything goes smoothly, just keep the possibility in mind."
Arthur's mouth, already open to speak, slowly closed. For a moment, anxiety and that same stubborn hope warred in his eyes, but then he let out a heavy breath, as though forcing himself to accept an unpleasant truth. When he looked at me again, his face had already returned to its usual composed expression.
"Thank you for the advice," he said quietly. "You're right again. I shouldn't rush…"
Sitting up slightly, I tossed him the seventh-rank World Seed. Arthur caught it easily in one hand and lowered his eyes to the dimly glimmering crescent.
"In any case, there isn't much more for me to explain," I said more calmly. "You'll learn everything else at the very moment the World Seed unfolds in your core."
I lazily smirked and looked back up at the sky, but then decided to give him one more piece of advice, since he did not possess a rank 10 intellect and might very well do something wrong.
"Although… I suppose I'll give you one piece of advice after all. Don't try to do anything grandiose in the very first moments. Don't start by building gigantic continents, don't try to create hundreds of universal laws, and don't interfere with the creation of complex life until you understand how its basic structure works. First, get a feel for how the aether reacts. Observe how the energy of the soul behaves. As you've already realized, time flows differently there, so even if you spend years in this world, barely half an hour will have passed in the real world."
Arthur listened in silence, still studying the seed in his hand.
"Otherwise," I added, now with open mockery in an attempt to lighten the mood, "you may accidentally create a continent where it snows in the shape of tits every day, and then spend the rest of your life explaining to everyone that it was an important scientific experiment."
Regis immediately nodded. "A legendary scientific experiment."
Arthur slowly raised a stern look toward us, but I could see his lips trembling. "Sometimes I think the two of you are punishment for all my mistakes."
"Hahahaha," Regis and I burst out laughing together, wide, idiotic grins spreading across our faces.