NOVEL NEXT Chapter 415: Imperfection
"The infinite body is ready," Luther said, his voice cutting through the quiet of their chess game.
Rachel heard him, nodded, and closed the 'game server,' which was, in fact, a rank 13 world formed by countless universal laws. There was no longer any need to continue training their Wisdom Dao; it was now time to focus entirely on the infinite body.
"Starting the final test," Rachel murmured, bracing herself. Even for her, this part was particularly challenging.
Reaching quasi-rank 15 without the aid of an infinite source of power was impossible. There were only two such sources: the Creation and the Gray Realm. Among them, the Creation was a larger infinity, but as previously stated, there was little difference between the two in practice.
The infinite body experiment required several rank 13 test subjects. Mike was the first in Rachel's charge of reality, but he would not be the last.
Rachel, along with her many incarnations, held indirect control over the Gray Realm. However, despite this, they still lived within the boundaries of the Creation. Creating a comparable, fully independent reality, one free from the influence of the Creation would require quasi-rank 15—a level she had not yet reached.
Some time ago, the joint Rachel conference had developed a rank 14 spell called Cleanse. This spell could completely and utterly remove the influence of the Creation and its infinite domain from a designated area.
Rachel had managed to temporarily remove the Creation's influence using gray energy countless years ago, so the concept was not new. The challenge in creating the Cleanse spell lay in its intricate mechanism.
The Cleanse spell restricted the Creation's infinite domain and permanently replaced it with gray energy. Any area affected by Cleanse would permanently be lost to the Creation. Even though the Creation had no will, it would never allow itself to lose part of its infinite domain. Fortunately, the spell was designed meticulously—it substituted a piece of the Gray Realm's infinity for what was taken from the Creation. In essence, the Creation lost a piece but gained an equivalent one elsewhere.
Executing the Cleanse spell was extremely difficult, requiring the joint efforts of many rank 14 incarnations. Rachel's Wisdom Dao was infinitely close to omniscient, which was the main reason they managed to design such a powerful spell. The spell succeeded because it didn’t upset the balance of the infinity domains. Both the Gray Realm and the Creation lost and gained in equal measure.
Rachel needed this effort for a specific reason: in order to conduct the final test of the infinite body, it had to be done in a place completely devoid of any influence from the Creation.
"Cleanse," she whispered, casting the spell after centuries of deep concentration.
A fierce gray light burst from her, converging into a point no larger than the tip of a needle. It was so bright that even from millions of light-years away, one could be blinded just by looking at it. Rachel remained focused, knowing the spell was successful, but in order to make it permanent, she needed to construct a formation around the area to stabilize it.
After a few thousand years, the brilliant light gradually faded and disappeared. If anyone were to look at the spot now, they would see nothing out of the ordinary—just darkness.
"Success!" Rachel smiled to herself. She had been confident that the spell would work, so it wasn’t surprising that everything went smoothly.
She was in an abandoned charge of reality. The Cleanse spell had successfully ripped away a small part of the Creation’s infinite domain—no larger than the tip of a needle—but to accomplish such a feat was almost unheard of.
The small size didn’t bother Rachel. She could stretch this tiny fragment into an entire universe, which would provide her with ample space for any experiments she wished to conduct.
She snapped her fingers, and Mike, who had been in a meditative state with closed eyes, appeared before her.
It had already been several quintillion years since Mike began cultivating the infinite body. Now, his consciousness was gone. His will had disintegrated, leaving him incapable of even performing simple martial arts poses. His body, while young, strong, and healthy, no longer represented life.
Mike’s de-facto death could be considered the most thorough form of death imaginable. Even Rachel would have trouble reviving him to his previous state. While the infinite body was mighty, it had its flaws. It had been created to test the characteristics of infinity, not as a tool for martial arts cultivation.
The infinite body had gradually influenced Mike’s soul. As a result, Mike’s soul had transformed into a twisted version of an immortal soul. This was not a benefit. In fact, it was one of the worst outcomes for a soul. An infinite soul meant his will had become immune to all external forces—even rank 13 entities couldn’t affect it. Spells designed to preserve or reset his mind were ineffective. Without a way to restore his will, the simple passage of time eroded his will until he reached this vegetative state. Scientifically speaking, Mike was in perfect health—his body and soul immortal, strong, and invulnerable. But in reality, he was trapped in a vegetative spell. Because of his immunity to mind-altering spells, even Rachel would struggle to reset his mental state. She would have to disable his immortal soul and carefully reset it, all without accidentally killing him in the process. It would be far easier to travel back in time and retrieve Mike before he began cultivating the infinite body.
However, doing so would create a paradox. While paradoxes were no threat to beings of rank 14, for Mike, who was only rank 13, a paradox would be fatal. Rachel could prevent his disappearance, but she had no intention of going through all that trouble.
She gestured, expanding the Gray Realm into a room-sized space large enough for Mike. Technically, Rachel was a pill container suspended in space, with no physical hands, but she still mimicked the mental gestures out of habit from her human days.
With another mental snap of her fingers, Mike was transported into the room, a place that existed solely within the Gray Realm. In that space, nothing—not even the Creation—could enter or spy without Rachel’s permission. Even other rank 14s would be perplexed if they tried. The room was the ultimate safe haven, capable of repelling even ordinary rank 14s. Only spells as complex as Cleanse might have a chance to bypass its defenses, and even then, the caster would need access to not one but two infinities. Other rank 14s lacked control over the Gray Realm. If they attempted to steal from the Creation’s infinity domain, the Creation might simply erase their birth paradox and eradicate them so wholly that no memory of their existence remained.
In short, there was no one else in the world besides Rachel capable of casting the Cleanse spell.
After securing Mike in the room, Rachel contacted her other incarnations.
"The first test is ready. Accelerate it," she instructed. For the final test, all versions of Rachel had to work together.
Only by uniting their efforts could they exert enough control over the Gray Realm to proceed with the next phase.
…
Mike sat still in the room, his eyes closed, devoid of thought, will, or life. For all intents and purposes, he was dead.
Time passed within the room. A year, a million years, a googol years... time flowed infinitely.
Eventually, Mike’s body, which was supposed to possess an infinite lifespan, withered and turned to dust, leaving nothing behind.
…
"Interesting," Rachel mused. She and her incarnations had just increased the time passage in the room to an infinite rate. The result was not unexpected.
"The infinite body isn’t perfect after all," she smiled, though she had anticipated this. Despite the hard work Rachel and her incarnations had invested in constructing the infinite body with the infinite characteristics of the Gray Realm, they were still rank 14 and had not reached omniscience. They had thought they’d succeeded, but this experiment proved otherwise.
This test had one purpose: to determine whether the infinite body had any flaws or was perfect. When time accelerated infinitely, the body revealed its limitations. Under normal conditions, the body might have survived for an incomprehensibly long time—googol years to the power of googol years—but it was not truly infinite. There was a limit.
"This is incredibly valuable data! We can modify the infinite body based on this," Rachel said, immediately sharing the findings with her other selves. Fortunately, many more infinite bodies would soon reach rank 13, ready for further experimentation.
The result Rachel sought was simple: if time were accelerated infinitely, the body should remain intact. If it truly possessed an infinite lifespan, it should survive even in infinitely accelerated time. The day they achieved that result would be the day they succeeded in creating the genuine infinite body, one that fully inherited the infinite characteristics of the Gray Realm.
Once they discovered the correct method to transfer the true infinite traits of the Gray Realm to the infinite body, they could apply it to themselves and finally reach the omniscient realm in Wisdom Dao. With omniscience, stealing an infinity domain from the Gray Realm to permanently promote themselves to quasi-rank 15 would become a real possibility.