“Dimensional rules? They’re actually not that difficult to understand. A well-developed dimension is like a mansion with an owner. The creator is the owner of the mansion, and the Gods with their Divine Concepts are the managers of various areas. Some are in charge of watering (Rain), some are in charge of personnel and changing out the workers (Cycle of Reincarnation), and so on. If you can create a new job and a new task that can make this mansion operate more efficiently, and the owner recognizes your existence, you’ll be able to become a God too. As long as your room still exists, you’ll naturally become undying.” – Quote from “Games of Time and Space, Volume 3: Guesses about the World’s Unsolvable Riddles” by Selis Solomon.
Archmage Selis was renowned as the greatest space magic mage of all time. His understanding of Time and Space created the foundational textbooks for the Mage Country’s studies into these two top-level fields. His Volume 1 on Time and Volume 2 on Space became required textbooks for mages who wanted to study Time, Space, Dimensional Summoning, Illusions and so on. However, Selis’s Volume 3, “Guesses about World’s Unsolvable Riddles,” greatly decreased everyone’s opinions of him. Selis’ reputation went from that of a wise scholar to one of the most insane mages in all of history.
It was unknown whether his inferences were real or not. It was also unknown whether assassins belonging to the Gods’ Churches succeeded in assassinating Selis, who was one of the strongest mages in the world. Regardless, Selis hadn’t made any appearances in more than three hundred years. His Volume 3 could only be found in the possession of the older mages.
Selis had explained the Gods’ secrets in a way that was far too common and easy to understand. Belief and idolization would require a sufficient sense of distance. Who would fervently worship the person next to you who ate, burped, slept and farted like a normal person, even if that person was indeed a God? Perhaps it could be said that those who idolized others were farthest away from the truth.
Although mages typically lacked belief in the Gods, they still knew what they could and couldn’t tread upon. Knowledge was power. But some things should only be known by themselves. There was no need to create a huge break in their relationship with the Gods unless it became necessary. And so only archmages knew top-level knowledge about dimensions, Time, Space, Divine Concepts and so on.
Archmage Selis actually had an even more direct explanation regarding dimensional rules in that now forbidden Volume 3 of his.
“Under normal circumstances, it’s impossible for the Gods’ true bodies to personally enter the world of Eich. The Gods can only perform a God’s Descent upon one of their own believers or send down an incarnation. This is akin to directing from afar. This is because the homeowner hasn’t given permission for these guys to enter, afraid that these powerful and clumsy existences will break the furniture or abuse the servants. But in a certain special type of situation, the Gods will be able to directly interfere with our world. And in that special timeframe, all limits will be removed, with outsiders being allowed to easily enter this mansion. Even the ‘managers’ will be able to act as they please. That’s right, I’m referring to the Holy War.”
“Based on research data we’ve accumulated over many years, the rise and fall of the Elemental Tide is something beyond any mortal or God’s control. The Elemental Tide is like an exchange mechanism for the mortal plane of Eich and the Four Elemental Planes. Whenever the Elemental Tide is in high tide, perhaps the entire world is renewing or exchanging something out. Perhaps this is the world’s own natural exchange mechanism for renewal. Yes, I know that I have no evidence for this whatsoever. All of this is only my inference. Still, all the new species, new mines, new plants and new animals that appear after every Holy War provide circumstantial evidence for my theory.”
“In every Holy War, the previous ruler of the world is very likely to be defeated. Or that species will die off in such large numbers that they’ll no longer be able to rule the world. The survivors of that species will also mysteriously find their fertility lowering drastically. Also, approximately ninety-five percent of intelligent beings will die off in every Holy War. After the Holy War’s end, the new ruling species will have fertility like never before, and the empty land left behind by other species will become their territory. It’s almost as if all of this has been planned beforehand, as a prize to be given to the victor. The best evidence for my theory isn’t only the birthing boom after us humans won the previous Holy War. It’s that the elves had a tremendous population increase after winning the Holy War from two wars ago. Elves are very famous for their low birthrates, and after the previous Holy War, their birthrate became even lower.”
“…If you look back at the Holy Wars from history, it’s almost as if the Holy War itself has become a necessary method for this world to mature and grow. We humans are nothing more than a sacrificial byproduct. We aren’t the masters of this house (or world). We’re nothing more than temporary renters that have to give the key over to the next renter. No, if my theory is correct, even the Gods who are supposedly so high above us are nothing more than higher-level sacrifices, or perhaps I should call them consumables.”
“…All of us lifeforms are a part of and serve this world. As long as the River Styx continues to flow, demons and devils will forever be produced. As long as Heaven’s Pillar continues to exist, the general populace will continue to believe in the Gods, desiring a good place to go after death. The Order Gods will also have an endless amount of belief power. However, when compared to the Chaos Evil Gods, their strength has too many limitations because they’ll be controlled by the Source of Order.”
When I read this back in the day, my first reaction wasn’t “Oh, he’s absolutely correct!” Instead, my reaction was “Unbelievable! He actually didn’t disappear for knowing too much?” But then I asked around and learned that Archmage Selis had indeed gone missing several hundred years ago. And so I nodded and said “That’s right—that’s how it should be. That’s what happens to those who know too much and say it out loud.”
Several hundred years ago, when Archmage Selis came up with his theories, everyone treated them as way too radical. Plus, he himself said in his Volume 3 that they were “guesses” with no concrete evidence to back them up, so of course very few people believed him. Of course, the main reason why his theories never spread was because it was impossible for anyone to obtain any power or knowledge from this volume which contained nothing but guesses.
But, if this volume was completely useless, Selis’ Volume 3 would have been left to gather dust in everyone’s warehouses. Although Selis was a traditionalist mage uninterested in studying Demonology or Summoning, he had managed to obtain many byproducts from his Time and Space research that helped him accomplish incredible achievements in demon summoning, dimensional traveling and so on.
“…In that case, it’s easy to explain why demons and devils require blood sacrifices to come to our world. These bloody sacrifices always have many requirements, but one thing in common about all of them is that the more frightened and worse of a death that the sacrifice undergoes, the better. Based on my research on these blood sacrifice rituals, the sacrifices’ souls weren’t consumed but instead vanished. The demons have a saying that ‘Souls are the only currency in the lower planes.’ In that case, just where exactly did this ‘currency’ obtained in the blood sacrifice go to? I personally believe it was paid to the Chaos Abyss or even the world of Eich itself as the ‘toll’ and ‘rental fee’ to allow demons to stay in the mortal plane. I’ve done a series of experiments on this subject and obtained some results…”
Selis invented simple items to assist in blood sacrifice rituals, the unit for measurement for souls and methods for communicating with residents of the lower planes. His new theories came up with new demon-restraining summoning formations that were basically the equivalent of summoning through the dimensions by abusing loopholes. Selis’ accomplishments in this field made countless SemiGod Demon Warlocks and Summoners feel ashamed of themselves. The greatest achievements in their own topic of research were done by an archmage from another specialty entirely.
“The best evidence of my inference is that the low-ranked demons have incredibly weak abilities when in the mortal plane. In fact, they’re even weaker than ordinary wild beasts. There’s no reason whatsoever for them to be under dimensional limitations. However, summoning even the low-ranked demons still requires a blood sacrifice, even if it’s just the mage’s own blood. This goes against the mainstream ‘Elemental Tide Limitations Theory.’ According to that theory, these low-ranked demons shouldn’t be under any limitations whatsoever. Also, while the undead are also unwelcome in the mortal plane, summoning undead from the Undead Planes doesn’t require a blood sacrifice. And it just happens to be that it’s not anywhere near so troublesome for these lower plane residents to visit other dimensions. Perhaps the blood sacrifice itself isn’t even that important. It may be nothing more than a request to enter the ‘mansion;’ it may be just a method to obtain the world’s recognition. In that case, I have yet another guess…”
If that was the extent of Selis’ research, it would have still been fine. But I continued to read his book and could only exclaim that “Archmage Selis had nobody but himself to blame for his own disappearance. Forget about just playing around with such research results on his own—he actually dared to write all this and publish it as a book?”
What else did he write about? He wrote about… the truth behind the Holy War!
“In that case, what does it mean when in the later stages of the Holy War, demons don’t even need to pay a ‘toll’ anymore to come to our world? Does this mean that the homeowner personally invited the demons? In that case, we should carefully consider why the current ‘homeowner’, the Source of Order and the Order True Gods, would invite the demons. What motivation could the homeowner possibly have? Do they really want to win the Holy War? Or do they simply want to see countless lives dying in the Holy War, starting another cycle of destroying the world through warfare and rebirth?”
“…In that case, perhaps becoming the biggest winner of the Holy War isn’t even a good thing. That’s because this species will almost always become the main sacrifice for the next Holy War right after. How else will there be enough souls produced as currency? Perhaps it’s not only the lower plane residents that require such a currency; perhaps the Gods themselves also require…”
Although there were many idiots in the world, there would also be many smart individuals, especially among the ancient artifacts that had lived for very long. Ancient existences’ long lives helped them accumulate a huge breadth of knowledge. The old dragons that had been able to remain “neutral” throughout innumerable Holy Wars definitely knew something about the truth behind the Holy War. But forget about simply knowing—not only did Selis tell people, he even wrote about it. Evidently, he succeeded in behaving foolishly to the point of causing his own disappearance. By the way, I should mention that Selis was actually Margaret’s teacher’s teacher. I also obtained his disreputable Volume 3 through Margaret.
As for the current me, having such a “foolish idiot paving the way”—cough—cough—I meant having such a respectable predecessor was a wonderful thing. This was especially because he was kind enough to write down most of his research results in this forbidden book of his, which saved me a lot of trouble. I even came up with the idea of obtaining a Foundational Elemental Item of Dragon World as the catalyst for dimensional summoning (the equivalent of a dimension sending out its invitation) thanks to Selis’ theories on dimensional summoning.
“…Yep, a blood sacrifice is required to summon demons or devils to the mortal plane. But it isn’t necessary to use blood sacrifices to summon demons to other planes, although the rate of success for this is low. The main reason is that other planes don’t have sufficient resources and souls to pillage, and the demons are also afraid of being summoned into an enslavement trap. As for why they’re not worried about enslavement traps in the mortal plane? All the blood and souls in the mortal plane mean that the demons are willing to take this risk. And if they only send their incarnations, the risk is almost non-existent …”
Before me was a giant summoning formation with a radius of several dozen kilometers. This was a modified version of Selis’ simple summoning formation. The White Dragons soaring in the skies above me had helped draw it.
I had profited so much in being able to obtain the support of the White Dragons. For a human, this summoning spell formation would be difficult to understand, but any dragon would easily understand it. Any dragon, upon seeing it, would immediately learn that the target of my summoning wasn’t the undead from Eich as they were expecting but rather the most unwelcome of all lower plane residents.
“Forget about summoning the devils because that was in our original plan to begin with. At least you can still reason and negotiate with devils. Just what are you intending to do by summoning demons?”
Supreme Immemorial White Dragon Sam silently landed next to me and transformed into his Snow Elf form.
Not far away from this tremendous summoning formation was a much smaller summoning formation. Although this formation’s target was also to summon from the lower planes, I wasn’t summoning from the Hell the devils resided in. Instead, I was summoning from a certain level of the Chaos Abyss.
“Heh, I’m summoning a certain individual I have connections with to help us out.”
“…This formation appears to be connected to the personal territory of a Demon Lord who’s at Earl rank or higher. Are you sure that a Demon Lord will reason with you rather than simply bringing disaster upon you?”
“…There’s no need to ask because I trust her completely. She’s a new Demon Marchioness, and you probably wouldn’t know her name even if I tell you. Also, if I don’t go talk to her… I would absolutely be bringing disaster on myself.”
“A new Demon Marchioness? The one from the Flame Sea? She and you…”
“…Probably, I think—uh—maybe she’s my girlfriend?”
“Why do you sound so doubtful? Oh, I understand. Youngsters these days are truly amazing. You actually dared to start a romantic relationship with a demon. So you’re worried she’ll accidentally eat you? Right, just how tall is she? Three hundred or four hundred meters tall? Since she’s of the fire element, she’ll probably have the Chaos Abyss flames that burn everything all over her body. She’s so young, so can she really fully manipulate her flames? Can your little body take it if she accidentally lets out a spark?”
At first, Sam was looking at me as if I was a brave warrior. But then he started looking at me like I was a suicidal fool, so I felt rather awkward and averted my eyes. But now that he reminded me, a cold sweat started breaking out on my back. I felt like I had forgotten yet another important thing.
Elisa would be coming in her true body as the Demon Marchioness rather than a temporary incarnation summoned through a blood sacrifice. Although the Demon Marchioness in her true body would be a powerful ally for upcoming combat affairs, if she decided instead to first deal with me or accidentally crushed me to death under her foot…
“Oh my, you actually have this self-realization. No, I should say that you’re making progress. You’ve finally realized that she’s going to be angry with you?”
“Silly cat, you want to rub salt into my wound? How about we modify her summoning formation or at least make it so that she arrives later? I still haven’t prepared myself…”
But the black cat glanced at the spell formation which was already glowing and shook her head.
“It’s too late. She’s in even more of a hurry than you are. I don’t know if you’re prepared or not, but she’s definitely fully prepared to see you again.”