"Okay, I think I see what's going on." Dr. Jacobs declared, pointing at Chris. "You're a meat puppet."

Chris raised an eyebrow at him. "Excuse me?" After showing Dr. Jacobs his little 'I can't die' stunt, and Debra left to get back to work, the man had begun to ask a lot of detailed questions about how his ability worked and what he could do, getting pretty much everything but his ability to find other worlds out of him, and then this was his conclusion?

"Think about it." Dr. Jacobs began, leaning forward. "You aren't dependent on your body for consciousness, as shown by the fact that you can mutate and still be aware. Additionally, you can have multiple bodies, none of which are primary, but are still deeply interconnected. It doesn't make sense unless you assume that your body isn't the real you, the world is. That's where your true consciousness resides, and you simply manipulate your bodies through your control over the space they occupy."

Chris frowned. "So… I'm a world connected to a body, not a body connected to a world?"

"Precisely!" Dr. Jacobs exclaimed, grinning slightly. "And that's why you can't die! Because no one is actually attacking you, they're just attacking your meat puppet!"

"Then what about my subordinates?" Chris asked skeptically. "They can't die either, and they're definitely not my meat puppets."

Dr. Jacobs paused, beginning to frown as he considered that point. "Huh… what if- what if you were somehow connecting their consciousness to your world, protecting it before shoving it back into their bodies after fixing them up?"

Chris rolled his eyes. "Okay, you're just guessing at this point."

"Of course I'm guessing." Dr. Jacobs scoffed. "That's how science works. You make educated guesses until you have a workable idea, and then you test that idea to see if it can be proven wrong until you've gathered enough evidence to say it definitely could be the case, and it becomes a theory. Like the Slime Theory that suggests that all life on Azza is descended from different slime mutations. It definitely could be the case, since given the nature of slimes, they would continually diversify over time until they developed sexual reproduction, spawning different species based on their level of development. However, that still leaves the question of where the slimes came from, so it isn't a very popular theory."

"Maybe they came from the primordial stew?" Chris shrugged. The slime theory sounded a bit like the theory of evolution from Earth, just that slimes were formed first, instead of single celled organisms… which if he really thought about it, were just microscopic slimes.

"Primordial stew?" Dr. Jacobs asked skeptically.

Chris nodded. "Basically it's the idea that when the world was first formed, it had all this stuff swishing around randomly, basically chemicals from rocks and shit, and given enough time, that stuff combined into something that could actually live."

Dr. Jacobs blinked. "Well, that's a theory I suppose… though I will say I'm wary of any idea that depends on something random happening if given enough time. It can't be argued, because no matter how much time you give it, the proponents of the theory can always say you just need to give it more time and you can't say they're wrong, because no one has experienced the amount of time they suggest, so as long as they can find enough evidence to suggest something could happen, it's as good as saying it would happen. It practically turns time into a divinity! Though at least we know time actually exists, so there is that."

Chris shrugged. "I guess. I'm not really all that invested either way, it's just an idea I heard recently, since the question of whether or not I should allow life to grow in my world came up."

"Well, if you're looking for results any time soon, you better hope time isn't a factor." Dr. Jacobs chuckled.

Chris shook his head. "I decided life would be too much of a hassle, since any life that appears would essentially be me, and I'm not too invested in being any more than myself. Maybe if I can find a way for life to exist without it being me, I'd go for it, but otherwise, meh."

Dr. Jacobs frowned. "That is an interesting conundrum. It begs the question of what is life, and why would you be forced to take control? Theoretically, life is simply a series of biological processes, so as long as those processes take place, then life should simply be, with or without your interference."

Chris nodded along, before suddenly freezing, pinching the bridge of his nose, and letting out a frustrated grunt. "I'm an idiot. Fuck I hate being an idiot!" He cursed as another part of him focused on the Immortal World. Why would life need his direct intervention? Why would it need to be him? Because until recently, the Immortal World didn't have any fucking rules! Biological processes simply didn't happen, so of course he'd need to control everything! But now? Now things were different.

On the barren surface of a random planet orbiting a random star, a random wolf randomly appeared. It was examined and checked several times, ensuring all the biological processes it needed to live were functioning as intended, before the consciousness which gave it birth carefully withdrew, leaving the wolf to its own devices. The wolf stumbled a bit as the presence left, until it figured out how to keep its feet underneath it. And then… it just stood there. It was alive, but… what was it supposed to do? It had no concept of what eating was, let alone what would be good for it to eat. It barely knew to breathe and only because it knew it hurt when it didn't. All it did was exist, and nothing else.

"Huh…" Chris grunted as he observed the wolf. The good news was that life could officially exist without him. Yay. Unfortunately, he still seemed to be missing something… the wolf he created didn't have any instincts. It simply was, no more, no less. A completely blank slate, which… wasn't going to work. He let out a sigh, dissolving the wolf. He'd try again later. Or at least, that's what he was thinking before the wolf suddenly reformed. "Uh… shit, I think I fucked up." Chris frowned. Now that the wolf was alive, it couldn't die any more than anything else could in his world! "Okay, fuck it, it just needs some basic insticts, right?" Chris grumbled, searching through his memories for the most basic urges he had, cobbling them all together and shoving them into the wolf. Finally, the wolf began to actually explore, moving to the nearby stream and drinking some water, before looking around for something to eat. "Crap, I should have started with a herbivore." Chris sighed.

And so, to make sure the damn wolf could actually eat, Chris began to design an ecosystem. The maze didn't exactly have a prey/predator thing going, plus the Immortal World didn't exactly have plants and he sure as shit wasn't making bees, so he decided to have a predator/predator ecosystem. Everything ate everything. He made a few copies of the various predators he'd encountered in the Maze, shoving them full of urges just like he had the wolf, and sat back to watch what happened. It was not pretty. Turns out that when nothing can actually die, trying to eat another living thing was just torture. You'd take a bite, and then the meat would disappear as they healed, and you'd be forced to take another bite… you get the picture. So Chris was forced to set up a respawn rule, where instead of the original body being healed, a new body would be created a couple meters away. Chris actually considered whether he could simulate an actual life and death cycle this way, leaving them on a sort of 'hold' until a new life was being born and sticking them in there… it was possible, but it would have to wait.

"So, yeah, turns out I can have living things in my world, I just didn't have the physics to support it before." Chris explained with a shrug.

"I'm not sure whether that's better or worse than before." Dr. Jacobs muttered. "On the one hand, if you can make a functional body, I should hope it could live on its own, on the other, you're literally creating life on a whim, and that's… well, you might as well be a god at that point."

Chris frowned. "I'm not sure if you could actually count it as creating life… at least, no more than you could say sex creates life. I'm just making biologically feasible organisms and life happens, not because I say so, but because that's how it works, whether you do it through a womb, a test tube, or by rearranging particles. I'd be a god if I'm the one who decided what a viable life was, which clearly I'm not, because my earlier attempts needed me to keep them alive. At best I'm just reproducing asexually." Chris paused as he realized that was yet another startling similarity between him and a slime. Asexual reproduction, choosing what knowledge to pass on to his progeny… his ability was just some bastard amalgamation of his mother's ability and his father's nature as a slime, wasn't it? Well, except all this spatial stuff…

Dr. Jacobs snorted. "Well, I suppose that's one way to look at it. Though this still doesn't answer the question of how the creatures connected to your world remain themselves… by all rights they should have remained dead before you laid the physical foundation for their existence, or they should have been a new creature, one that simply looks exactly like the original, but isn't."

Chris frowned, before snapping his fingers as it clicked. "It's their essence! I must own it and I just put it back in their body once they're healed. It also has to play a part in telling the body how it should function… or at least, it knows how to make the body move and act without any physical laws to support it. Or would it just be that it plays a part in directing the body, and my basic understanding provided enough of a foundation to allow movement? But then how could they still use their abilities… I don't know shit about how those work." Chris trailed off, muttering to himself as he tried to figure out how what was obviously true was possible.

Dr. Jacobs leaned forward with a frown. "What is essence?"

"It's…" Chris began, before pausing and cocking his head. "Huh… I'm actually not entirely sure. It's something people have and it contains all their memories and whatnot, and it leaves when they die. That's all I know."

"And how do you know about it?" Dr. Jacobs asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Uh… from slimes? They can sort of eat essence, which lets them absorb the experiences of the creature, allowing them to mutate faster. And I know that because I own a slime and she told me that's what they do." Chris explained.

Dr. Jacobs leaned back again. "Fascinating… Do you think this essence has anything to do with how powerful an ability is? Could it determine how much ability energy you produce?"

Chris gave him a weird look. "People don't produce ability energy. They absorb it based on where they're born."

"Ah, I see, that-" Dr. Jacobs froze, staring at Chris in disbelief. "You- you know where ability energy comes from?!?"

Chris blinked. "Did you not?" He paused. "Oh yeah, that's- nevermind. But yeah, that's how people get ability energy. You can probably prove it by shoving a bunch of rats into a container full of ability cores and seeing how much stronger their offspring get. Compared to a control group, of course."

"Of cour- no! How do you know this?!?" Dr. Jacobs asked incredulously.

Chris shrugged. "It's a secret."

Dr. Jacobs frowned. "A secret." He stated blandly.

"A secret." Chris confirmed with a nod. "But does it really matter how I know? The point is that it's true, and I can even give you the formula which determines how development attracts ability energy."

Dr. Jacobs paused for a moment, before grabbing a notepad and handing it to him. "If you could?" Chris smirked, writing the formula down before handing it back. Dr. Jacobs studied it for a moment, deep in thought, before looking up again. "A thought occurs. We know that ability energy density remains the same throughout your life, i.e. a child with a high-tier ability will still have a high-tier ability when they grow up. Yet if this is true, then their ability should fluctuate as they age, yes? Gaining more or less ability energy based on their environment. But it doesn't. This is why we theorized that there's a gene or something that determines how much ability energy a person produces…"

Chris frowned. That was weird. Unless… "What if it's both?" Chris offered. "You absorb ability energy as you develop, and then once you reach a certain point… probably when your body is set in the form it'll have for the rest of its life, then it begins producing ability energy on its own? So it isn't really development that draws ability energy in, it's transformation. Or something. I'm just guessing at this point."

Dr. Jacobs shook his head. "No, no, if we take both as true, which-" He held up the notepad. "-I will still need to test, then… it's certainly possible. The only time your cells truly differentiate is during embryonic development…" Dr. Jacobs began to nod. "Yes, yes! This is something to explore! And if it's true… We know ability type is genetically determined." He paused glancing at Chris. "We do know that, right?" Chris nodded. "Good, good, then all we need to do is find couples with promising ability combinations, shouldn't be that hard, then place them in an ability energy rich environment… we're going to need a lot of ability cores. But we just need one! One Omega-tier and the Maze is ours again!" Dr. Jacobs cackled excitedly.

Chris sighed. "If only we could find a way to make ourselves physically stronger as well, then we might not need to live down here anymore." He paused. "Though honestly, the sky is a menace, so we're probably better off."

Dr. Jacobs blinked at him. "How-"

"Secret." Chris shrugged, grinning slightly.

Dr. Jacobs stared at him for a moment, before slowly grinning back at him. "Well… I did say we only needed one." He muttered with a light chuckle.

After finishing up with Dr. Jacobs, Chris had two avenues to explore: switching up his portals so that instead of drawing people in to the Immortal World they pushed the Immortal World out, and the fact that apparently he had a level of spatial control over his own body that he might be able to expand on. Since he had a better grasp on his portals, he decided to start there. He just needed to figure out how to turn his hole into… not a hole. This might be harder than he thought.

"Okay, first, what am I actually trying to do?" Chris muttered to himself. "I'm trying to push part of my world out, so… I need to figure out which part of my world I want to push out." He nodded, focusing on a small, empty area in the Immortal World, something generic which he hoped would be easy to manipulate. He focused, and he pushed, and… boop he had a new section of the Immortal World. "Oh yeah, that's what that does." Chris frowned. Did this mean he had another world to explore? Could he not? He surreptitiously 'grabbed' the new section and just kinda 'yanked' it and boop it merged back with the first.

Chris let out a relieved sigh, before pausing as that gave him an idea. He focused on the small area again, but this time he didn't push, he pulled, drawing it towards himself. Slowly, the space began to push, or be pulled, into a small area in front of him, not like a portal, but… actually more like a portal. The space literally split the world around it, pushing it aside as like a curtain, warping it, before it suddenly snapped back and Chris let out a groan, rubbing his head. That had been difficult. Like trying to connect someone to his world who didn't want to be, or trying to push a portal beyond its limits. Something resisted his attempts to pull the space in, and it resisted hard. Plus, that wasn't what he was trying to do anyway. He didn't need a new portal, he needed a way for his world to be part of this world.

"Okay, let's think." Chris muttered, considering the problem for a moment. "Obviously the two worlds can interact. Sort of. One can push the other. The problem is that they don't mix. It's one or the other, not both, which isn't going to work for me." He frowned. "What I need is someplace to put it… like a-" Chris paused, starting to grin. "Like a hole." He chuckled, opening a portal and grabbing the space again, pulling it in. This time, there was no headache, no warping, just a pop and the space was there. Kind of. He thought. Well, he could sense it, but since it was just space, he couldn't actually see it. "Interesting." Chris muttered as he walked in and out of the area. It was definitely his space. A block of stone appeared in his hands, before shifting into a sword, then a staff, then a bow, and finally a plate of orange chicken. He took a bite, enjoying the flavor, until he stepped out of the space and it all disappeared. He then picked up a nearby rock, carried it in, and connected it to the Immortal World. "Okay, just like my world." Chris nodded. He'd obviously still need to test how mutation would work, plus he wasn't sure how someone dying inside the space would go if they weren't already connected to his world… a question of which took precedent, his world or the other. Thankfully, that was the only point where the two might conflict.

There was only one problem: he was filling a portal, so it had the same limits as his portals did, which meant any space he made would mean less portals to work with. Thankfully, once he'd made some actual rules for the Immortal World, his portals had become a bit more flexible. It wasn't just that his max radius had grown to two meters. He was now limited based on volume instead of radius, which meant he could have eight one meter radius portals instead of just two. He could also alter the shape of the portal, as long as he maintained the same volume, and kept everything within two meters of the origin, which was rather convenient in his opinion. Walking in and out of spheres was just kind of awkward. He wasn't exactly sure why it had changed, since it was weird that it hadn't worked that way before… maybe it was just that his world was one dimensional, so his portals had been too? And now that it was three dimensional… maybe? Or maybe he was just talking out his ass. Whatever, he had more portal to work with, and that was a good thing. Maybe if he added fourth dimensional physics in… eh, he wouldn't even know where to start.

"Speaking of starting…" Chris muttered, slowly starting to grin. He'd figured out how to accelerate his subordinates' mutation, and now he had a way to mutate them outside the Immortal World, probably. Which meant that all he needed now was ability energy. Lots and lots of ability energy. Which meant… It was time to hit the tunnels and hunt.