And so Eldrian attempted the first approach. But not in any way he had previously tried.


    No, those attempts had proven impossible. Taking Time and forcing it to act for him. Such an action wasn''t possible. Not with any stability.


    Thus came his new solution. While his soulcked mass. It was energy. And energy still obeyed thews of motion. Thus, to alter the flow of time, he shouldn''t use his powers to force it to happen. Instead, he should create a state whereby the naturalws will ensure time did his bidding.


    And thus, he settled on the easiest approach.Add spin to his soul''s bubble.


    Naturally, adding mass was another option. But since everything in his soul is massless, Eldrian had no idea how to do this.


    This was all an oversimplification, but he felt it was a logical attempt to try. Everything in the universe, for some strange reason, had a spin property. Nothing was ever truly static. This seemed to stay true even for quantum mechanics. Though Eldrian could never keep up when Ziraili mentioned this.


    "Enough dying. Let''s start." The first problem was that his soul truly was static. Unlike physical phenomena, the soul was transient and ethereal. Multiple attempts had failed to make it more ''real''.


    Eldrian felt he understood one way of going about making it more real. But that method wasn''t possible right now. Instead, he had to attempt Core 1''s suggestion.


    ''Gather the energy within my soul to a core...'' This was shockingly easy. Largely due to the amount of XP he had wasted on making Core 1. Twenty-two failures had cost Eldrian an incredible amount.


    Almost as if fated, it might have been for the best. With the energy density so much lower, Eldrian seeded in condensing his soul without much of a struggle.


    Since his first attempt, the soul world he had created had fallen apart. Of everything in his soul, only the condensed forms of mana—his mana soul—had survived. But even these constructs had no ce in his new vision.


    Thus, Eldrian pulled them apart. Pushing the mana (a foreign substance) along with everything else, into a single ball.


    This was the first step. But there was a problem. Eldrian couldn''t ce his consciousness within the ball. Not if he wanted to control it urately. His senses would be distorted by being limited to an ''inside'' view. Hence, he made a secondyer.


    One that covered his condensed Soul-Core.


    Within this secondyer, he kept only a sparse amount of energy. Yet, he had anotheryer beyond the second. That which once was his entire soul. Now empty. A vacuum, containing just enough ''stuff'' to avoid being called a true void.


    Forparison. The Soul-Core was the size of a golf ball, while the secondyer was the size of a stadium. And the third, it was probably around the size of the Earth if one wanted to scale things.


    "Now, isn''t this something?" Core 1mented. Eldrian could swear he heard something mocking in Core 1''s tone. "You can do this, but you can''t understand the ssification of matter?"


    "Cut it out. I''m focusing." Eldrian replied. Upset being reminded of the dichotomy in his abilities.


    "Hardly. At this point, things have stabilized. But what is the n?" Core 1 replied. Its curiosity peaked.


    It had assumed Eldrian would pull at Time again. If, perhaps, less stringently. It had thought Eldrian would try to make a branch of time flow through his soul.


    A method doomed for failure. But with Eldrian''s power, it was possible. The results would have been a manipted flow of time overflowing through an already established time flow.


    For as long as Eldrian''s focus remained, this would be possible. And the results as he wanted. Once he became too tired to focus, Eldrian''s demise would have been assured.


    Some part of Core 1 had wanted to see that happen. But this was fine too. It didn''t care much for life—nor if Eldrian survived. It was simply curious. And it hated the limitations its creator''s lifeform had gifted down onto itself. It wanted to know the nakedness of the universe.


    Like the gods. It wanted to be unrestrained. To see the truth.


    And then it wanted to be one with that truth.


    "Just make sure things stay stable," Eldrian replied. Shifting focus he had already connected to a flow of time. Whether time was singr or not, he had connected to a simr flow as all the other times.


    However, unlike the other times, he hadn''t attempted to alter the flow itself. He knew from experience that such an attempt would fail.


    Bending time to his whims was seemingly impossible. No matter how hard he trained or how much he learned. It just never worked.


    And the truth was just as Core 1 had said. Eldrian had considered it a separate ''thing''. Separate from the dimensions building his world. Seperate from magic. Separate from everything.


    But it wasn''t. It formed part of everything. Woven throughout everything, it seemed to be one of the most core parts of existence.


    The Weave.


    And by having previously attempted to alter time, Eldrian had pulled at the entire Weave. Trying to shape it to his whims. Without considering the implications of doing so.


    To think he had thought it would work.There was no way it ever could have. No way it wouldn''t have resulted in violent reactions.


    Thus his new attempt. His new approach.


    The flow of time was everywhere. Eldrian didn''t have to bring it into his soul. It was already there.


    However, it had not interacted with anything in his soul. His consciousness, and other things with consciousnesses being the exception.


    That was where Eldrian''s original n came from. And one part of why he had finally taken a step to create Magical AI. Cores.


    They held consciousness and thus could bring reality to his soul. Or so Eldrian had believed.


    A logical leap. And one that Core 1 had set straight. It wasn''t that consciousness brought forth time and realism. No, consciousness experienced time, and thus realism happened.


    "Core 1, are you ready?" Eldrian asked.


    "I am to control the spin, correct?" It replied, curiosity bubbling. If this worked, it would change so much.


    "Yes. But most importantly, just keep it spinning." Eldrian replied and opened the floodgates. So to speak.


    Time already flowed, but now he nudged it towards the core of his soul. He did not attempt to create a bend. Nor did he attempt to force it to interact with his soul. If it simply passed on by, that was fine.


    Ultimately, he wanted time to be ''trapped'' by the spin of his core. Not trapped physically, but unable to ignore it. Forced to interact with it, and everything within it.


    "Faster. Faster. Faster." Eldrainmanded, focusing his entire being on feeling the reaction ''time'' had to his soul. Thus far, nothing.


    ''Perhaps this is truly impossible.'' Eldrian thought, but there was no point in stopping here. Thus he kept going. Kept pushing on. Until, finally, something happened.


    At some point, his Soul-Core started spinning too fast. So fast that it could no longer be slowed. So fast, strangely, that it somehow spun faster without Core 1 doing anything.


    "Ahhhhh! Waiiiiiiitttttt"


    Eldrian felt a pull. His soul was finally interacting with time. "Just a little more," Eldrian shouted, ignoring Core 1''s screams. Instead, he pushed time just a little closer.


    ...


    Eldrian opened his eyes to a truly strange sight. Darkness filled with light. Visible distortions in space and time before his sight.


    "Oh, crap. Core 1? Core 1!" He shouted, but no answer. No, there were something strings... strings of a familiar consciousness. Shredded into thin lines.


    All around. Being consumed by the distortions surrounding Eldrian.


    ''Th-is... i-t... Beu-t...y'' Core 1''sst thoughts were transmitted to Eldrian as its consciousness faded.


    "Well... fuck...." Eldrian cursed, looking at his surroundings and feeling confident this was hisst screwup. "I''m dead. Aren''t I."