The next day, a large delivery of Star Core, Refractive Gold and Blazing Night Ores was delivered to Leonel.

By this point, Kaela and the others had already accumulated more than enough merits for Leonel to be able to trade for this much on his own. However, why spend it if he could save these merit points for something else?

Leonel felt that this was more than enough to push his body to Tier 9 of his Metal Body, something Leonel had to thank the tablet for allowing him to accomplish.

After sorting out the information the tablet had flooded him with, Leonel had come to a solid understanding of what it was and how it worked, though its origins were still a complete mystery to him.

Leonel’s conclusion was quite simple, the tablet seemed to be especially tied to Life Elemental Force and Dream Elemental Force. If Leonel had to describe it, he might even say that it was a combination of the two Forces to create an even higher grade Force he couldn’t fathom.

Unfortunately, this unnamed Force was too illusive. And, even if it wasn’t, Leonel didn’t have the Life Elemental Affinity that would be needed to control it.

This aside, Leonel felt that the Force itself was less important in this context. What was important was the fact the tablet could produce it and make of it to perform all sorts of amazing actions.

The first and most obvious was resurrection. However, from Leonel’s understanding, this wasn’t an all encompassing resurrection. Only ‘spirits’ the tablet had accepted into itself could be allowed to be rebirthed. And, even then, it would only be once.

Leonel wasn’t sure how this worked or why the tablet had such rules to begin with. It almost seemed too arbitrary and lacking in sense. Why would someone be able to be resurrected once but not a second time? And if Rollan, Elthor and the others were real people, then why was it that the tablet could only resurrect them but not others?

After some thinking, Leonel couldn’t think of an answer to the first question. But, he felt that he had a good guess for the second.

A Zone was essentially an instance of time folding in on itself. If left alone, it could cause a collapse of the present. However, there were a whole host of time loop problems that were introduced with this.

For example, if Leonel went back in time like he did in the Joan Zone, which timeline was real? Was it that one he learned about in school? Or was the real version of events the one where his actions killed her?

Using logic to try to explain these things was near impossible and it was simply easier to accept that time in the Dimensional Verse was not linear. However, since it wasn’t linear… what did that represent?

If Leonel had to make a somewhat educated guess, he would pinpoint that the difference between people like Rollan and Joan, versus say himself or Aina, was that the former two had been plucked out of the normal laws of causality, where as the latter two, although travellers to these past and future eras, were still fundamentally in the presence and thus still bound by it.

Leonel wasn’t certain if he had properly wrapped his mind around it. For instance, it might be better described as a twist or shift in causality rather than a dismissal of it.

But, the fundamental truth was that whatever laws of causality that applied to them did not apply to others. And, it was this fundamental shift in causality that the tablet was able to take advantage of a loophole in to resurrect people.

Having accepted this, Leonel found that it was easier to wrap his mind around and gave him a deeper appreciation for the other abilities of the tablet.

This led to the second ability, which was tied to loosening and undoing bottlenecks.

Using this higher level Force, the tablet was able to clear away obstacles usually presented by a body’s lack of maturity or slow adaptation. In exchange for the energies it liked to absorb, the tablet could open up bottlenecks for Leonel, thus making his future progress much quicker.

It was the third ability, though, that made Leonel feel like the stars were aligning for him.

Truthfully, this wasn’t an actual ability of the tablet in the meaning that it was created for this purpose. Rather, it was Leonel’s Dreamscape that sparked and suddenly made a connection to another problem he hadn’t had a solution to for years.

Long ago, Leonel had learned about Little Blackstar’s fantastic ability to steal the powers of those he killed. The only shame about it was that the little guy could only take on one ability at a time for himself.

The bright side of this had been the fact that Little Blackstar could allow others to absorb these abilities as well. But, with that came two severe downsides…

The first was more manageable. Not every ability would result in an increase in strength. For example, if Leonel tried to absorb the ability of someone else with a Dream Force affinity, the likelihood was that he would get weaker and not stronger.

Absorbing an ability required it to be compatible, for it to be of equal or higher strength, and for it to have a synergizing effect with your own. If not, it would be more of a detriment than anything else.

The second downside, though, was crippling, so crippling that Leonel hadn’t even considered using Little Blackstar’s ability in this way until now…

When one absorbed the ability of the dead, a lingering personality or soul would remain behind, permanently changing one’s disposition for a lifetime!

However… The tablet was able to absorb this lingering soul, leaving behind nothing but the pure ability!

Leonel exhaled a long breath, flames crackling between his teeth and lips.

His eyes opened, a calm light within them as he stood and entered the Lab Setting.

Not long later, he stood before two snowglobes he had kept under lock and key, unwilling to take any risk with them at all.

Within these snowglobes, there were none other than Candle and Vice, the two Savants that remained of Earth.