NOVEL NEXT Chapter 98 - Cosmic
[Ting!]
[You killed the Infinity Slime Boss. You gained 6 gold coins.]
Lucien ignored the notification and made a beeline for the loot.
First, his hand went straight for the Golden Cube. Inside, three brilliant stars pulsed softly.
His eyes lit up.
One by one, the drops vanished into his INVENTORY with the familiar chime of the system.
He opened the item descriptions immediately.
<Orb of Continuum>
Type: Consumable
Rarity: Legendary
Description: Holds the harmony of space and time. Grants special effect when used by someone with both attributes. (Crush to use.)
<Spatial Compass>
Type: Consumable
Rarity: Epic
Description: Always point toward a selected location
<Hourglass of Slowed Passage>
Type: Consumable
Rarity: Epic
Description: Makes your personal time flow differently relative to the world, allowing you to do more in the same "outside" moment.
Lucien's eyes gleamed as he scanned the loot.
Everything was useful.
A compass that pointed to any chosen location?
That was a game-changer. He could track hidden treasures… or even recover items he'd lost.
"Wow, my mom back on Earth must've had one of these. She could always find the things I couldn't."
The thought drew a nostalgic smile before he shook it away.
Then there was the hourglass. Formidable in its own right.
If he used it, his personal time would flow differently while the outside world stayed the same.
Faster reading.
Quicker mastery of skills.
More done in less "outside" time.
From an outsider's perspective, it would look fast indeed.
But in truth… he wouldn't feel the difference at all. His body would still experience every second normally. The only change was that the rest of the world seemed to lag behind.
The possibilities were endless.
"Hmm… could I squeeze in more hours of sleep with this?" he muttered, smirking at the thought.
But the real highlight was the Orb of Continuum.
It reminded him of the Orb of Equilibrium. The very item that had granted him his Eclipse Magic Attribute.
What would this one give?
He itched to crush it right there but held back. For now, he was still in his mini-clone and it wouldn't work.
His gaze then shifted to the golden card practically calling to him.
A monster card.
His throat bobbed as he read the name.
Infinity Slime.
Lucien's eyes lit up. Lootwell Dungeon bosses always seemed to drop their card the first time they were slain… and never again on repeat kills.
Still, he didn't summon it right away.
He needed a proper name this time.
"My pets worked hard for this one… calling it Loopie, Mobie, or Blob Marley just wouldn't cut it."
He sighed as he genuinely tried to be thoughtful about it.
Turning his attention elsewhere, he scanned the Boss Room for the stairs to the 4th Level.
The group moved deeper in…
But nothing.
No stairs.
No doors.
No passages.
Instead, at the far end... the air itself seemed to fold in on itself.
A distortion.
It's like a solid ripple frozen in place.
A space barrier.
Lucien stepped closer. The power radiating from it carried the unmistakable traces of the space attribute.
Nothing lay visible beyond the distortion. Just a blurred haze as if reality itself refused to be seen.
Even with BURROWER'S EYE, Lucien's vision went no farther. The space beyond remained out of reach.
No danger radiated from it yet its presence was undeniable.
The group approached cautiously.
Lucien pressed his hand to the barrier.
Solid.
Cold.
He ordered his pets to try breaking it.
But...
No brute force.
No magic.
No trickery.
Nothing pierced it.
Lucien's brows furrowed. It was as impregnable as the dungeon walls themselves.
"So… I can't get to the 4th Level until I figure out how to shatter this?... Maybe once I'm more proficient in Space Magic…"
With no way forward, retreat was the only option.
It had still been a good run. The morning's gains were more than worth it and the Orb of Continuum was practically burning a hole in his inventory.
Before leaving, he spent a moment interacting with his subjects. He watched their work unfold with satisfaction.
Finally, he severed the connection.
•••
The scene shifted.
Lucien opened his eyes to the familiar ceiling of the Silvermine Estate.
A small smile crept across his face.
He summoned the Orb of Continuum into his hand.
Smooth.
Polished.
Radiant.
Within, endless layers of shifting stars swirled. It looked like it was holding a miniature galaxy in perpetual motion.
It was almost too beautiful to destroy.
Almost.
This time, he didn't hesitate. He crushed it in his palm.
What happened next was nothing like his previous attribute awakenings.
No curling streams racing up his arms.
No piercing shot of energy to his forehead.
Instead...
When the crystal shattered, the stardust inside spilled into the air, swirling in place before him.
The motes gathered, shaping themselves into something greater.
A river.
A flowing current of shimmering stardust hovered in the air. Its light bended and rippled as if it carried the weight of eternity itself.
Lucien froze.
'Is this… what the river of space and time looks like?'
Lucien watched in silence.
It was… breathtaking.
It's like gazing into the very blueprint of the universe. Stars shifted in deliberate patterns and time itself seemed to ripple and blur.
Then—
The river moved.
In an instant, the shimmering current of stardust surged forward... shooting straight into him.
Lucien flinched.
He braced for pain... yet none came. The stardust flowed into him like a warm tide, leaving not injury but a strange invigorating clarity.
He felt it...
The river poured directly into his Divine Energy Core as though the core had been waiting for this moment all along.
It welcomed the stardust as it hummed in resonance.
And then—
[Ting!]
[You have gained an affinity in Cosmic Magic.]
[Ting!]
<Achievement Unlocked: Eternal Horizon>
You've awakened the forgotten affinity of Cosmic Magic, granting you mastery over the threads of space and time woven into a fabric of reality
Reward: Mantle of Infinite
***
<Mantle of the Infinite>
Description: Woven from the strands of space and time themselves.
Use: Equip to activate.
Effects:
• Outer Layer (Night Sky): Passively bends light and space around the wearer, making them harder to detect and reducing ranged damage taken.
• Inner Lining (Dawn Light): Channels stored energy into a radiant pulse that heals allies and harms foes in equal measure.
***
"Woah… First the Gloves of Equilibrium, now the Mantle of Infinite. Are these things actually part of a set? What's next…?"
His mind ran wild with guesses about what other treasures might await... until something shifted inside him.
Lucien froze.
His core was… stirring.
It was subtle at first like a faint vibration but... It quickly grew into a deep, unsettling tremor.
A sharp groan escaped his lips.
He clutched his chest trying to contain the unrest within.
"Shit—! What's happening—ugh!"
Dropping into a cross-legged position, Lucien forced himself to breathe, to focus, to control.
Externally, he was fine.
No injuries,
No sudden weakness.
The problem was deeper.
He pushed his divine energy through his body, scanning every organ and every channel.
Nothing seemed damaged.
But the moment that energy touched his core...
...something impossible happened.
Immediately, the world around him warped.
Lucien blinked and found himself… in an unfamiliar place.
No, not entirely unfamiliar.
A strange sense of deja vu crept over him.
He was floating.
Weightless.
Suspended in a place without ground or sky.
It was exactly like the time he'd met that elusive figure of light.
Radiance flooded the space but it didn't burn his eyes. Instead, it felt… pure.
Comforting.
Lucien swallowed hard.
A wild thought struck him.
"Damn… am I actually inside my divine energy core?"
The moment the words left his lips, a pulse of energy rolled through the void.
He turned...
...and froze.
There they were.
Skillpedia.
Magic Book.
Monsterdex.
Each one orbited lazily through the space like planets in a private cosmos.
But now, they seemed… alive.
Suddenly… they moved.
The three books drifted closer, spinning around him in graceful arcs.
It's as if they were greeting him.
Lucien reached out and brushed his fingers over their covers. It felt oddly like patting loyal companions.
But then—
A pulse.
No… several pulses.
They thudded against his senses like the heartbeat of the world itself.
Lucien's head snapped toward the source.
And he saw them.
His magic attributes.
They glided through the air, weaving around each other in patterns.
Their glow waxed and waned in rhythm like dancers in some wordless ritual.
With every pass, energy surged... layer upon layer... feeding into something unseen.
"Are they… the reason my core stirred?" he murmured.
He didn't get the chance to answer himself.
Because that's when the anomaly appeared.
From above, a familiar radiance caught his eye.
The Cosmic Magic Attribute.
The river of shimmering stardust.
It pulsed once… twice… then shot upward. It pierced the golden sky above as if answering a call from beyond.
And then—
The next occurrence shocked him.
The river of stars… exploded.
For an instant, there was nothing but darkness.
But slowly... pinpricks of light began to bloom.
One after another, they flared into existence until he was surrounded by a thousand newborn stars.
Then… movement.
His Eclipse Magic Attribute stirred.
The Yin-Yang pattern spun faster and faster until its light bled into the starfield around him.
The seeds separated from its body.
The black swelled, shaping itself into a moon.
The white ignited, becoming a bigger star. The sun.
The bodies also shifted. From their orbit, light and shadow poured outward.
The other attributes soon joined the dance...
Earth gathered into floating continents then it combined and became a globe.
Water flowed, filling the emptiness with seas and rivers.
Fire roared, giving warmth and life.
Wind whispered across the land, stirring the newborn atmosphere.
Clouds formed and lightning cracked in the distance.
The poles took shape birthing the first breath of cold.
The air thickened.
The sky deepened.
And finally...
Time began to flow.
...
Lucien was frozen.
Everything happened so fast…
His eyes were wide.
His mouth slightly open.
Breath caught in his throat.
What he had just witnessed...
It wasn't just magic.
It was as if he had seen the birth of a universe with his own eyes.
Goosebumps crawled along his skin as the enormity of it sank in.
But then… something even more startling struck him.
He felt it.
Every grain of soil on the newborn earth.
Every ripple of wind in the newborn sky.
Every star in the endless firmament.
All of it—
His to command.
He didn't just exist in this space.
He was this space.
Lucien closed his eyes, reaching out with that strange new connection.
He pictured himself moving...
Not walking.
Not flying.
But simply being somewhere else.
In the blink of an eye...
He was there.
He could teleport anywhere in this space with nothing more than a thought.
Lucien's heart pounded.
"This is…"
A universe… formed inside his core.
And he... he was its master.
But as he took it in, something caught his attention.
The space for all its grandeur... had edges.
Faint distant walls... almost like the shifting dungeon walls he had seen in the boss room earlier.
It was still vast... but not endless.
The stars glittering above weren't real celestial bodies. They were manifestations of his Cosmic Attribute.
The only star that felt real was the blazing sun born from the white seed of the yin-yang.
Still, Lucien was not harmed by it. In truth, he felt that it's warm and comforting.
His gaze then fell to the newly formed globe.
It looked… small.
Small enough that if he wished, he could explore its every corner in a single day.
"Sigh… Maybe this space will expand once I level up."
It was only a guess... but one that felt right.
He willed himself toward the globe.
A blink later, his feet touched solid ground.
The texture of the soil.
The whisper of wind.
It all felt real.
But the excitement faded almost as quickly as it had come.
The globe was… barren.
No plants.
No animals.
Not even a single blade of grass.
Lucien frowned until a thought struck him.
"Wait… I control this space, don't I?"
His eyes lit up.
He raised a hand... and voila.
In one corner, the familiar shape of Lootwell Manor materialized exactly as he remembered it.
A rush of nostalgia warmed him but curiosity quickly took over.
He pushed further, sculpting the space with his imagination.
Twin towers rising into the sky.
An airplane roaring past.
A deafening kaboom tearing it apart.
And with a single thought, it was all erased.
His laughter echoed across the empty world.
But then he noticed something.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't create life.
Not even a sprout of grass would appear.
'Of course…' he thought.
Still... being able to conjure anything else at will?
That was already dangerously overpowered.
Though he knew this ability only worked inside this space…
...and that nothing he created could be taken outside.
With a thought, he conjured a chair and sat down.
For a while, he simply… contemplated life.
His mind wandered back to his past life.
"This is what it feels like to truly escape reality…" he murmured.
Escaping, he realized, wasn't about forgetting reality.
It was about protecting the parts of yourself reality could never touch.
He remembered the days when the world felt unbearably heavy and how he buried himself in games. He clung to the fleeting moments where life felt light again.
Just then...
…an idea sparked.
Closing his eyes, he pictured something from those days.
An object shimmered into existence...
...and dropped neatly into his waiting hands.
A game console.
Lucien's eyes lit up.
It worked.
He switched it on, only to notice something odd.
Every game inside was one he already knew.
Every level.
Every mechanic.
Drawn entirely from his own memories.
"Of course," he muttered.
You couldn't play what your mind didn't already hold.
With a shrug, he tossed the console aside.
"Well… time to return to reality, I guess."