The Law of Space was weird in how its Fragments were distributed, but that wouldn't be important for a while.
For now, Kyle just had to focus on the Minor Fragments of Compression, Expansion, Stasis, and, with luck, Connection.
Kyle consumed the first Space Comprehension Fruit, and moments later, he felt the Energy in his surroundings changing.
Kyle felt a new kind of Energy. It was strange and subtle, but it was also everywhere. It even seemed to overlap with other kinds of Energy.
In a way, one could view it as being able to see air.
'This is so weird,' Kyle thought as he saw the new kind of Energy constantly moving around and shifting. 'It's constantly doing stuff. You would think that space is just some stationary and unchanging thing, but it's constantly in motion.'
Kyle's surroundings weren't warping, and they weren't moving around, and yet, it seemed like the space was flowing through all of the different spots in three-dimensional space.
'But how am I supposed to learn about expansion and compression?' Kyle thought as he watched the moving Space Energy. 'It's not expanding or compressing. It's just doing random stuff.'
Kyle scratched the side of his head before shrugging. 'Well, just gotta see what it does. If I imitate it, I might be able to do some stuff and learn new things.'
'One Space Comprehension Fruit should hold for about 50 years, which means I got a total of 200 years to learn as much about space as I can.'
Kyle kept watching the Space Energy, and when he understood some of its concepts, he tried to imitate it, but it wasn't that easy.
Kyle failed several times to create Space Energy of his own, even though he knew what it should look and act like. The Energy he created never truly interacted with the right "layer". It was a bit like drawing something with a photo-editing software and being on the wrong layer.
No matter what he did, his created Energy just traveled on top of the Space Energy.
'This reminds me of the time I tried to summon Metal Energy for the first time. I tried to create Metal Energy, but I just made Wind and Fire Energy instead.'
Kyle looked at his hand. 'Maybe it's like this? If I just use a bit more feeling instead of logic, I might be able to do something about it.'
As he experimented with the Space Energy, he emulated different emotions and mindsets, but he only got other kinds of Energy. Fire, Wind, Water, Biological, Earth, and so on. Everyone could technically conjure any kind of Energy. It was just very hard and costly without a fitting Affinity.
More time passed, and Kyle became more and more absent-minded during his experiments. At some point, his mind and body just started moving instinctively.
"Oh!" Kyle shouted in surprise as he saw the space in front of him warping slightly.
'That worked! Let's try that again!'
After some more experiments, he managed to affect space once again.
And again.
Some time later, he managed to find the right mindset to manipulate Space Energy. He used that mindset several times, doing random things, and slowly managed to translate his feelings into actionable logic.
As he waved his hand, the space in front of him distorted slightly, but it immediately stabilized again. It was a bit like dumping a bucket of water into the ocean. It made a splash for a moment and created a couple of waves, but all traces of the bucket would be gone quickly.
'Yep, that works,' Kyle thought with a small smirk. 'Now, I can experiment and see what I have to do to compress and expand space.'
The experiments became more targeted. Kyle changed the Space Energy whenever he shoved it into his surroundings. Then, he just watched how it affected space and adapted.
This was similar to how evolution worked. Subjects, or in this case, experiments, tried random things, and the ones that were more successful were used as a new base.
As Kyle kept experimenting, he noticed that the wall in front of him seemed to move away from him. 'This is the expansion aspect of space, but it's nowhere near complete. Yes, I can expand the space between me and the wall, but I need to shove an ungodly amount of Space Energy into the surroundings.'
'I remember how Warp Space distorted the space around us with a much greater impact while using far less Energy. This is the level I need to reach to comprehend the Minor Fragment of Space Expansion.'
A long period of experimentation followed, and Kyle's impact on the surrounding space became more prominent.
Yet, as time passed, he also noticed that manipulating space became harder. It was like something was trying to resist him, and the Energy he needed to use for every experiment increased drastically.
At some point, the Energy he needed to use reached a plateau. Additionally, sensing the surrounding Space Energy also became quite a bit harder. It just seemed much blurrier.
'I guess the Space Comprehension Fruit is used up, ' Kyle thought as he looked at the date. 'Yep, it's been about 55 years since I took the first one.'
However, when Kyle looked at the Space Energy in front of him, he still felt it with relative clarity. It wasn't nearly as clear as before, but it was still incomparably clearer than before his consumption of the Space Comprehension Fruit.
'Guess I'm familiar with Space Energy now, and I can still use it. It's expensive, but I can access it.'
Kyle looked at the three Space Comprehension Fruits that were left.
'I consumed one and didn't even comprehend a Fragment. At this rate, I'm not even sure if I can comprehend the Minor Fragment of Space Stasis.'
'I think the right thing to do is to consume the next fruit and focus on compression. Compression should be the opposite of expansion, and I can probably improve my understanding of expansion by seeing what I need to do to reach the opposite effect.'
Kyle consumed the second fruit, and the Space Energy became clear again.
'Bro! I know that I don't have an Affinity for Space, but come on! The difference is fucking insane! I feel like a half-blind guy who put on glasses for the first time!'
Kyle shook his head to refocus his mind and started his experiments on compression.
As time passed, he noticed that he was making progress quite quickly. It felt like compressing space was much easier than expanding it, but Kyle knew that it was just an illusion.
The truth was that he had simply become more familiar with Space Energy and understanding its related concepts.
After some time, Kyle started to alternate his experiments. He compressed space before expanding it again while keeping track of how much Energy he needed and how big the effect was.
He slowly tweaked it, decreasing the Energy consumption while increasing the effect.
Then, he noticed that he hit a plateau again, but the Space Comprehension Fruit was still working.
The plateau came from his improvements counteracting the weakening effects of the Space Comprehension Fruit. While the Space Comprehension Fruit worked for about 50 years, its effects weren't binary. They slowly weakened.
'No idea how far I can go with this,' Kyle thought as he tried to keep up with the weakening effects of the fruit.
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