When he relayed his updated information on Jacob to the man in question, he simply shrugged and took a few more bites of his food, then froze midway through his meal, suddenly looking uncomfortably at Dei.

"What?" Dei asked.

"Err, well, wouldn't that mean I have to enter the quarantine?"

"Ah, yes, I understand that you may not want to be trapped for eternity, especially not with a horrible monster…" he said, shaking his head slightly. No matter how useful Jacob was, Dei wouldn't force the man into a fight he didn't want.

He glanced at Thadria, saying "Oh, no, it's not me I'm worried about. I've already given up my life twice to prevent apocalypses, remember? I just don't want to leave Thadria behind."

The woman in question beamed at Jacob's consideration. "I might!" she said joyfully, "Don't factor me in just yet. I don't think I'll want to fight again… but if you do, I'll follow you."

He smiled sadly at her, "And what of the Minerali elves?"

She looked at him questioningly, "What about-" before realizing the question he was asking.

The Minerali elves would settle down somewhere eventually, and it would be selfish to expect them to do so in quarantine. If Thadria wanted to follow Jacob, she'd have to separate herself from the rest of her familiar elven population.

She'd only just reunited with them. Other than an initial brief interaction, she hadn't had many chances to reconnect with those she considered her family, even if her original parents were long-dead.

She looked towards the floor contemplatively, and Jacob patted her on the head. "I won't make you choose, you don't need to worry. I'll stay with you either way."

She looked relieved, but something else lingered in her gaze, and her jaw tensed as complex thoughts ran through her head.

Dei let them talk it out. Even if he could partially read into what troubled her, it wasn't his business to get involved. He wanted them to be happy, and if that didn't include walking with him into hell? That was fine.

* * *

His "Experiment" with his parents and giving them his pseudo-affinity went off with a resounding success. It didn't change much though, giving him strange insights into how concepts came about.

Even if Dei was amplifying the process, his pseudo-affinity still existed without him. It was strange, but it made sense when he thought about it.

Affinities weren't creators of reality, they simply allowed one to manipulate something that was already there.

Death, as a concept, always existed. Before the Death affinity, people still died, it was just that you couldn't take control of it or manipulate the concept.

His parents were already using the concept, even if it wasn't active manipulation, long before Dei stepped in. All he'd done was smooth everything out, and give them the ability to take control of the process.

There was a very limited amount of affinities, despite the limitless potential concepts.

The end result was that he detected his mark upon their souls, verifying that Land Between was able to give people affinities on Earth, which would be integral for its future development, and to ensure those he'd attuned to Void weren't permanently crippled from his "Blessing" upon them.

The deal with Agartha was already worked out. They would receive one domain of every Sapience affinity, plus Dei's own. Any Elite, from anywhere across the world, would be allowed to temporarily visit and earn enough of the affinities to gain access to Dei's own.

For example, if someone had the Gluttony affinity, they would be allowed access to Abstinence, which would directly oppose the effects of their origin affinity. Once they had that, they'd be allowed into Dei's domain, which would equalize the process between the two opposing sides, stabilizing the person's mind.

'I wonder how many things like this are out there,' Dei wondered, 'How many people have invented local magics unique to them, but never got the chance to Ascend? How many have left marks upon their world like I have, letting others utilize their abilities despite it not being affinities? Honestly… probably a lot. I've called it a pseudo-affinity this entire time, but I'm starting to understand exactly what this is: My domain as a God. This will be my domain, what I stand for, the thing that describes me. Aloran said it would be "One word," but I don't think that fully encompasses the process. It will be one word, yes, but a single word in a language nobody speaks. If I ascend, the affinity will have multiple words to describe it, until language can evolve enough to encompass it. I bet when Kindness first came about, it was called something like "Empathy for a friend, understanding them and wishing them well" or an equally long description.

'That's why Aloran's domain was no longer Refuge after his death, but Eternal Refuge. It's still one word in its own language, that of the Gods, but there was nothing in Undercant to describe such a thing. I wonder what his deal with Refuge looked like after that too, considering he was no longer a God of Refuge. I'll have to ask later, but if I had to guess it'd be that he's still a sub-section of Refuge even after the fact, so if he ever Ascended then his affinity would be a Derivative of Refuge called Eternal Refuge.'

Another puzzle piece fell into place, though this one made him rethink what he'd look for on his way through the multiverse. Even if there was a very miniscule chance of running into an untamed domain, such a thing would provide incredible insights. He'd have to be on the lookout for either people who had them, or places imbued with their meaning such as the one he was about to create.

* * *

Despite the efforts of Agartha, it still took several days before everything was in place to create a few instances of Land Between. They had to both construct temples and get enough Elite's together to power the activation of his spell, because there was no way for him to power them all himself.

During this time, they also asked if he would create a few spare ones- those of the foreign affinities they had access to.

"Absolutely not," he insisted, "The only reason more damage wasn't caused by Earth's experimentation with foreign affinities is because they are so much rarer here. I don't care if the affinities will be used sparingly, no Earthling will have the proper knowledge of what they're getting into with such dangerous affinities"

"But what about Void users?" Luke asked, "If we don't have one after you leave, we'll be trapped on Earth forever! What will happen if all the Void users we have on hand are assassinated?"

Dei looked at the man incredulously, "That's the worst idea I've ever heard. Not only are higher-tier affinities more dangerous to regular life, but Void is notoriously good at cracking unprepared minds. If you want a permanent connection to another reality, you'll need to create a permanent portal."

Luke seemed to reconsider his position, before agreeing that perhaps he and the rest of the Church were maybe taking things a step too far in the sake of creating failsafes. After all, if someone broke past the security, the worst spells that could happen with a native affinity had well-documented, more basic effects. In creating a foreign-affinity attuned use of Land Between, the worst case scenario was a potential apocalypse, because foreign affinities were oftentimes those higher on the affinity "Tree," and thus more esoteric.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

When everything was finally arranged, he sighed in both relief and exasperation. He was already past the allocated time he'd given himself to get everything on Earth done and he wasn't closer to finding Edit, the being supposedly responsible for creating MP, but he would be soon. When he was done, he had a plan.

The reason he wasn't looking forward to finishing everything up though was because his creation of the Land Between's would be some kind of massive event. Each affinity had its own dedicated "Place of power" to be imbued, a temple of sorts, and he'd have crowds of reporters following him around and recording the entire thing.

'It'll be good for Achievements,' he told himself, 'But Oh My God, can these people please let me work in peace? Ugh. it won't even seem like I'm doing anything cool, just walking around and looking at stuff really hard.'

* * *

Dei collapsed onto his family's couch, wheezing, tired, bruised, and hurting.

"Why is your soul deteriorating?" Perumah asked him after he arrived via teleportation in a monotonous tone, sensing that he was not panicking either and assuming nothing was wrong.

Luckily, his family wasn't around to hear such a concerning remark, as they were in the kitchen cooking. They were spending one of their final nights in the family home, because they would soon need to move for their own safety.

He heard her get up from her chair and come closer but didn't respond at first. After a few seconds, he finally groaned and said "My fans… were ravenous. They tore me to pieces…"

In reality, they just had a lot of questions and kept shouting that they loved him.

Perumah kicked him in the side. "Big baby."

"Yea? What's the architecture like in Gate City?" he asked snarkily, reminding her of her own failure in a social situation.

She kicked him harder, and he saw in his periphery as she looked away, embarrassed.

"You know what I just realized? How have you been getting blood?" he asked her, considering she hadn't leeched anything off of him since becoming independent.

"I will occasionally extend roots into the earth and consume local wildlife."

"Like… squirrels?"

"And rats, birds, feral cats or dogs and the like."

He frowned deeply when she said that, "I'd rather you just take my blood! Don't kill the cats or dogs!"

"No," she denied instantly, "I must learn independence, and it does not matter what I consume. It does not matter if you consider a creature adorable, it is still a part of the natural order. I understand that, culturally, humans place significant connection on cats and dogs as companions, deeming it unacceptable to harm them. I actually agree with this, as these two animals have grown alongside humanity, but I am not a human and hold no ancestral debt to them. In a natural environment, they are as brutal or murderous as any other wildlife. Feral house-cats are ecological disasters, and feral dogs are little different from coyotes who avoid hurting humans. With my intervention, the local ecosystem is more stable than it was before with how I balance my diet, not less."

He wanted to oppose her in some way, but knew intellectually that she was correct. It was well-known that feral cats killed everything smaller than them, even taking pleasure in torturing their injured victims. Cats were absolute sadists in the wild and would be deserving of whatever treatment Perumah could give them.

But they were cats! They were cute and friendly!

He simply sighed. "Please, at least tell me you aren't eating anyone's pet they let roam outside."

"I am not. I always make sure there is no claim to the animal, nor anyone who regularly feeds them or is friendly with them, nor do I consume juveniles or active parent animals," she assured him.

He turned the other way on the couch, day ruined. It hadn't been good in the first place, and Perumah's admission didn't help. He was tired. Even if he didn't need it, he decided to take a nap and handle everything else in the morning.

* * *

He was finally, finally leaving Earth for good. Once he left the universe now, he would not come back until right before he entered quarantine again, that way he couldn't be pulled into any schemes. His current goal? Directions.

He needed to find Edit, a Reality Being, but the closest Reality Being was Separation, and he knew what direction it was in relative to his own.

He'd tried finding it using Commune with the Universe, but he was simply too far away. Commune with the Universe worked a lot better in System space because the System acted as some kind of landline that connected Dei with the different Reality Beings. Without a way to quickly cross the distance to meet up with them, Dei was forced to restart his usage of the spell every time its timer ran out, so he would never reach Separation if he didn't get to a universe close enough physically.

To that end, Commune with the Universe served as an excellent compass. Each time he used it after traversing a dimension, he could check and see if Separation was closer or farther from him, then either double back or continue forward depending on the result.

Once he met with Separation, he'd do the logical thing of just asking that thang for how to reach Edit in the fastest possible way. He couldn't find Edit yet because it was too far away for his perception in Commune with the Universe to reach, so he went with the next best thing.

He just hoped he'd be able to get his System up in time. He was close, he could smell it, but he was struggling to figure out how Starved Bastion converted stars into energy, and entropic energy was unusable in this project. He needed pure solar power for his personal System, and for that he needed to find the exact spot in Starved Bastion responsible for connecting with the stars. The endlessly complicated spell would've been utterly incomprehensible, but Knowledge broke it up into digestible chunks and organized them perfectly.

It was like searching a library the size of a planet through the dewy decibel system for a single book. It was easier than wandering randomly hoping to stumble into it, but it was still gonna take a while.

* * *

Thadria looked better every day, even visiting the Aias, the eighth elven king, regularly. She wasn't able to enter his inner world because it was too raw-soul aligned, but Aias made an effort to make his way up to the surface of Dei's soul, and Dei worked to construct projections for the man to talk through. Apparently, Sealing Samaritan- the Connection effect between Cycle of Sealing and Good Samaritan- could serve as an unstable body for elves, granting them limited independence from Dei, temporarily manifesting as long as the line of Connection held. Dei worked on stabilizing this, with the potential end goal of them manifesting as true Spirits if he did it right, but that was a ways off.

The seventh queen, Loraine, was still utterly insufferable. She'd decided to ostracise Thadria for her failure among the elves, and Dei was this close to kicking her out of his soul, with only Thadria's insistence that she didn't mind, and Dei seeing clearly in her mannerisms that it truly did not bother her. Anything Loraine said to Thadria, the girl had already told herself hundreds of times before. As a matter of fact, Loraine's response comforted Thadria, as it was a familiar behavior to her, no matter how abusive Dei saw it as.

Aias didn't care for Loraine's input, nor did any of the other eighth generationals. Weirdly, Loraine was fine with that, and seemed to approve of them standing up to or even openly insulting her.

'Damn elves. I don't get it.'

No, the one that looked much more out of place today was, surprisingly, Jacob. Dei, Perumah, Thadria and Jacob all stood in front of one of the portal Dei had opened to the raw fabric, bracing themselves for the next step of the journey.

In Dei's time on Minerali, he'd already checked if it was closer or further from Separation, and was unsurprised to see it was further away. Mana on Minerali was freely able to move through creatures or the air, so it came as no shock that the Reality Being responsible for stopping this on Earth had less of a hold over the elven planet.

That meant the path they had to take, the one that led to Separation, went the other way: the dwarven planet of Caps, the one Jacob had given his life the second time to save, and the one where he was likely hailed as a hero and given a holiday of some sort.

This made sense, because Dwarves couldn't use mana at all, relying on tools instead, implying Separation had an even stronger hold over them than it did over Earth.

Jacob was happy to be going back, and Dei promised they could stop in and tell people he'd lived, but now Jacob felt awkward and had been thinking over what to say when he met them again.

Thadria gave him a sideways hug, comforting him for a change, and they all stepped into the fabric together.

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