Very little happened at first as Alkuthuzen crafted the potions one after another in front of the two dragons without much care. Every now and then, the process randomly failed, random to Akevorax at least, but it hardly phased the alchemist who restarted the process anew with some minor alterations to the recipe which usually resolved the problem faced earlier. While this all happened, his eyes often glanced around the room to the unused tables around the room’s edge.

Most of these were empty. Simple as that without anything special. However, a few tables still held strange magical devices which he couldn’t properly analyse in his sealed state. Some options were available to him though as just plain control of mana allowed him to varying the precision of vision and what exactly he saw at any time.

Through this he quickly picked up on a number of great runes within each magical device, and in theory each could be transformed into a Rune tool with an unknown use.

One of the devices even contained a limited quantity of drawn runes, relying entirely on the physical properties of its materials to connect in specific ways for particular effects. In a way it resembled alchemy, and he wondered how precisely crafted every little screw and pattern was across the whole object.

It resembled a wide can in some way, but the base clearly contained some sort of extended rod on which a thick, circular disk slid onto. Something likely rested between this disk and the detailed, can-like object, but no other parts sat on this bench.

Alkuthuzen never finished it, stumped as no currently known material satisfied its highly-specific requirements.

Even an idiot could take a gander at the idea of changing the other parts’ materials instead… But Akevorax was smart enough to actually check that too.

As simply as he described the two fully built parts, in reality they too utilised various alloys to create a delicately balanced building block of their own. And given the pure synergy between the top and bottom parts, he understood why this invention sat in the main room of all places.

It was so close to completion, perhaps less than 10% of it remained invalid. But given a complete lack of enlightenment or epiphanies after months, he just left it there in hopes some randomly obtained material or alloy fulfilled his wishes.

And while he stared at these unfinished inventions, a realisation also occurred to Akevorax. Nothing to do with the magical tools far about his level of knowledge and power, but rather his captor’s own behaviour. Immediately asking, “You’re not making potions to take my Soul and Mind. You’re creating them from scratch right now… How can you possibly account for so many variables without any hesitation?” Everything in the room acknowledged that he clearly wasn’t doing this perfectly, given the occasional mistake which ruined a potion, but it still left him dumbfounded that anything could reach this level of proficiency in a skill.

He could wilfully draw up some low tier arrays like this, but those things were mediocre things for Bronze and Steel tiers. The moment additional layers came into play, or any effects above gold tier, it demanded a high level of detail and attention just to create his arrays well.

By good luck, Casstilandri once refined potions in front of him not too long ago, and even she required a high level of focus and thought when creating new ones or heavily adapting recipes. Let alone when the materials casually included a number of grade 1 materials.

“You learn it all. The tolerances, the reactions, the signs, distributions, purity, and most importantly, technique. Know all your equipment, and know how to use it to achieve what you require most. I hear you dabble in arrays, as do I, when did you last put any of your alloys through a proper examination?” He turned to face Alkerovax for but a moment, staring at the young dragon who could only sheepishly stare at the floor in embarrassment…

Embarrassed by the one set to kill him in the upcoming days?

He could have avoided such a feeling when a true master of all crafts called him out for such a lacking part of himself. Materials mattered greatly in the creation of high tier arrays, and the fact he accepted a ‘rough guideline’ for using any alloy was a sign of his immaturity in his method. In fairness, no book ever explicitly spoke of this!

Some mentioned that testing the material for ideal properties mattered in delicate cases, but very few actually encouraged learning for the sake of learning.

Raw improvement not through new techniques but refinement of current methods.

“Know every material and how they should react at different quantities, then adjust and correct if in practice it differs… But this method requires so much wastage just to even start. Even if you have wealth, ruining so many materials for no reason is nothing to be proud over,” Akevorax’s voice went from an enlightened summarisation of the message to admonishing the methodology. He refused to destroy so much for the sake of simple information from his own mistakes.

Alkuthuzen dismissed his ignorant tone and replied quite stoically,“Obviously you wouldn’t do this for anything truly valuable, I do it this way to save on time.”

Save on time to stop his escape, even if entirely unlikely in the future. He’d gained one major idea since seeing the incomplete tool on the workbench though. The same method used to deal with Lostradus’ flames, except so much stronger and with finer control.

Unless the demigod-level dragon could instantly teleport away from an encroaching void, Akevorax actually obtained a plausible way to kill them. Unfortunately he needed more than a fraction of a second to initiate the merger.

That did lead into his second idea quite nicely though, as the Auric Spirit silently forced Origin Force into the array beneath and clogged up its channels in an effort to break the chains around his feet. With next to no beings preparing for Origin Force, he relied on the substance to–

Looking beneath him, the Origin Force stuffed into that array shot outwards. Repulsed by a powerful mechanism within a deeper array layer, his spirit hurriedly reabsorbed the floating substance before lying dormant within him once more. That didn’t stop Alkuthezen from looking over with a haughty smirk, as though a child fell for his trick… Because that’s precisely what happened.

“Did you really think I called for you without modifying my arrays? I hadn’t even heard of Origin Force till I asked the Nexus too, so thank you for clarifying my incorrect name.”

“If you’re so thankful, how about letting me live,” Akevorax just muttered at the frustratingly happy dragon ahead. The line mentioned something else of great importance as well, and rather than speak aloud he thought deeply to himself. While it acted as though the memories never happened, he knew for a fact that the Nexus read every last one. And he thought to himself, ‘How powerful is he? And what power is required to escape?’

[We currently do not know his exact power, but for safety’s sake we assume that only a tier 9 attack is guaranteed to open an escape route. Tier 8 attacks will not do anything serious]

He figured there was a reason Alkuthezen hadn’t feared any attacks from the Dragonlands’ supreme tiers, and this unbelievable level of power made things clear enough. Interestingly enough, the Nexus only specified a tier 9 attack would work for escape, so how did that translate to an Exeter’s tier 9 attack instead?

The void flames were his only option given all this, but he backpedalled in thoughts for a moment. Thinking clearly, ‘How do you not know how strong he is?’

[They reached Authority Level 7 many years ago solely through the discoveries of new techniques, products, and spells]

To reach that far without even a formal contract, Akevorax couldn’t help but glance around at the countless tables filled with unknown half-finished equipment as well as the side rooms with further items beyond his comprehension. Authority Level 7 meant that Alkuthuzen acquired 65 Authority points alone… And from then on the Nexus respected his privacy by reducing any scans performed on him.

With an unknown number of years since that time, he might have jumped up far higher to Level 8 or 9 by now! Especially with a method to obtain tier 9 power.

[One small correction. Most of the half-finished projects around you only exist because he purchased the technical knowledge to create advanced magical devices. He overlooked the difference in materials across so many galaxies, and doubled down by purchasing a dozen more similarly advanced objects to reverse engineer ideal materials]

That wasn’t right. He almost immediately thought with a confused face, ‘If he has Authority Level 7, should you be telling me this?’

[It’s more of a ‘respectful gesture’ than any hard requirement to cease observation. Besides, we’re happy to report any information on him which doesn’t exceed your Authority Level.]

‘Happy to? What caused that attitude?’ With so much experience with the Nexus, he knew when things were too good to be true. That wasn’t exactly hard to figure out in this case though.

[Because he performed one of the most abhorrent acts in the universe. His tier 9 power is hardly his own in any capacity, Alkuthuzen enslaved this Lunar realm’s will and moves the dimension’s power at his whims]

An unbelievably hard to swallow pill, but it explained the source of his power immediately. Though he couldn’t see what annoyed the Nexus so much about the enslavement of this lunar realm’s will as opposed to any other controlling method. Then again, in retrospect the Nexus simply refused to take sides on his enslavement and reanimation of assassins, perhaps because its morals refused to care about those dedicated to attacking and killing others.

‘Then tell me, are there any things in here that I can use to help suppress or kill him if I get out of this array?’ His thought immediately stirred the Nexus into action as it gave an uncommon reply.

[We can’t remove the payment for this knowledge, but we are allowed to cheat a bit… or a lot]

[Purchase ‘All purchased knowledge in Alkuthuzen’s base’ for 0.01 Authority Points?]

Sometimes he really couldn’t help but love how generous the Nexus behaved in truly dire circumstances. It even led him to wonder.

If not for the planar will’s enslavement, would the Nexus have aided the mad alchemist in refining the ice cream dragon to steal his assimilation properties?

A genius combined with the sole solution to easily reaching tiers 9 and 10, nothing more was necessary at that point. It depressed him to see that an almost perfect host for the Nexus existed, but ruined their chances by taking such an extreme route for power. Akevorax wasn’t entirely off the hook, but even the Nexus refused to argue the morals for enslaving those who tried to kill you.

[Even disregarding what he did to this plane’s will, he is far too unhinged. Our desire requires us to place absolute trust in the being who exceeds us. Though, we may have aided him in finding ways to copy your ability]

Incredibly mixed messages from the Nexus this time, but he didn’t fault it.

In the meantime, books by the hundreds poured into his Mind palace, creating stacks which almost reached to ceiling height as another formed right beside it. Very quickly, the numbers rose from just 50 books up to 200, and then crossed the 500 book mark. Many technical documents described the same procedures with either exquisite detail or as poorly drawn caricatures, signalling that just as many bad researchers or writers existed at the highest levels of the universe as they did across the eight worlds. Thankfully, the Nexus sent a small message before the final 20 books.

[These ones will be extremely useful for the items around you. Finding a solution will be purely on you then…]

On the plus side, the force from the transfer process didn’t actually hurt anymore!