Chapter 626: Grade of Worlds
Silence reigned at the top of the building for a long while.
Old Jack silently smoked his cigarette while Ryuk finally closed his eyes, feeling the air whipping by him.
With his level of power, everything seemed clearer than it had ever been.
The air hitting him could be felt distinctly and absolutely—more than he had ever felt it, even when he was just a kid back then.
[A kid. Ryuk, you’re still 17. You almost never grew at all,] the system interrupted, resulting in a pause.
‘To think, all of this time, only a year has truly passed for me…’
[Yes. It ought to be three, but you were always moving around, undergoing various time dilations that halted time for you.]
[Still, you’ve also exhausted about 25 years’ worth of life aura during your training, so the true sense of time on you is quite skewed,] the system replied.
Ryuk shrugged his shoulders.
“Time doesn’t matter. What matters is reaching the end of every single one of my goals… as fast as possible.”
“Whether it will take me a year or a hundred years… it’s not of much concern,” Ryuk thought silently, his hands coiling tighter against the balcony railing.
But then a voice rang out beside him.
“Lost again?” Old Jack said from the side. Ryuk turned to him and asked,
“…again?”
“Yes, early this morning during breakfast. You were lost in thought too—right before I called you up. Like something was bothering your mind…” he said as Ryuk’s brows drew together faintly.
“Although, I guessed that was due to your thoughts of whether the New World will accept us back without any problems,” he added, and Ryuk nodded before asking,
“Tell me, Old Jack. How’s the New World? I mean, the true world of the Fallen Angels.”
“Is it like Endearth?” he asked, as Old Jack hummed, finishing his cigarette before the rest of it faded into ash in his palm.
“Two hundred years.”
“It’s been two hundred years since the Phenomenon happened. I was about half your size back then—around twelve or so—when I was caught within the pull and dragged here,” Old Jack began, and Ryuk listened quietly.
“Twelve I may have been, but I do know a bit about the world we came from.”
“It’s a first-grade world,” he said, piquing Ryuk’s attention.
“Yes, first grade.”
“I trust you know about the Upper Realm and Lower Realm, right?” he asked, and Ryuk nodded.
“Well, the Lower Realm has its hierarchy. There are third-grade worlds, second-grade worlds, and first-grade worlds.”
“And then, there are wild worlds too.”
“Endearth, while we were still fighting the Knulls, is a wild world—weak and at risk of being invaded and destroyed.”
“That’s what a wild world is…” he explained, then continued.
“Then there are third-grade worlds.”
“The criterion is to be able to rid yourself of invasion. Like Endearth has done. So Endearth is now a third-grade world.”
“Then there’s a second-grade world.”
“This is a world that has already recovered from its invasion, even almost forgetting about the scars. It features a more stable environment, where things are smooth-sailing with no signs of threat close by.”
‘Medysla… That sounds like Medysla,’ Ryuk thought to himself, remembering the words of the Silverunics.
It was said that they had fought with an invading race called Void Walkers or something similar, but it was so long ago, it had started to seem more like a myth.
Their world was very stable—revealing that it must have been quite a long time since they had been invaded.
So, that makes it fulfill the criteria to be a second-grade world.
“And a first-grade world is one which could even be said to be part of the Upper Realm, but is not—due to it being far away from the Eyes of Manaioux…” he said, though Ryuk felt a bit lost there.
“What’s the Eyes of Manaioux?” he asked, and Old Jack thought about it for a while, as if pondering the best way to explain, before he raised his hands up.
A ball of golden light appeared before his palms as he pointed.
“See this tiny golden ball?”
“Imagine it to be the center of the entire living universe. The center, right?” he said, and Ryuk nodded.
“In this center is the source of all energy that permeates the entire universe. We call this center the Eyes of Manaioux.”
“I don’t know why they call it that, but my guess is Manaioux must be the name of this universe—so they called it the Eyes of the Universe.”
“Just a thought of mine. I don’t know how true that is.”
“These Eyes of Manaioux can be compared to a beating heart,” he said, and Ryuk watched as the glowing golden ball suddenly began thumping.
And as it thumped, it sent golden energy—like a shockwave—radiating out in a circular format.
“It pumps out blood in a circular direction?” Ryuk asked, and Old Jack chuckled.
“You almost got it—except that instead of blood, it pumps out mana. Energy.”
“And the Upper Realm and the Lower Realm?”
“They are called that based on their distance from the center of Manaioux.”
“As you can see, the energy pumps outward, but it travels a great distance through the worlds.”
“The world closest to Manaioux will get more of this energy, and the world farther away?” he asked, as Ryuk muttered,
“They’ll get lower—or close to none, eventually.”
“Exactly.”
“So the Upper Realm is the Upper Realm… because it’s closer to the Eyes of Manaioux?”
“Yes. That’s exactly why. The Eyes of Manaioux determine everything.”
“Now, around these Eyes of Manaioux, there is a circular line all around it, where about 60% of its energy is still kept with each beat. This circle defines the Upper Realm.
“Anything lower than that circle gets just about 40% of true Manaioux energy, and they are called the Lower Realm.”
“And a first-grade world is a world that just happens to be below those lines.”
“They might not be much different from any Upper Realm world, but they are just unlucky to be beneath that line. That is a first-grade world.”