Taking a deep breath, Alnea supressed the whirlpool of doubts forming within his Heart, pushing them towards its depths, before concentrating on the task at hand. Since observing the Mystery once was not enough for him to gain a deep understanding of the Mystery, he would just observe it again. He could even try to interfere with the Mystery, and observe its reaction.

  That was something he always wished to do, interfering with Mysteries as they manifested their projection around him. It was just that doing so came with its own risk. Leaving aside the possibility of inciting a deeper reaction from the Origin Sea, and summoning a Mystery beyond his level, just the price of actively interfering with the projection of Mysteries was not something that his pitiful Spirit Power could bear.

  Coincidentally, it just so happened that he was not in the Origin Sea. The Oren fog that he was surrounded with was not hindering his movements, neither was it sapping his Spirit Power. At least not as much as the real Oren did. Actively interfering with its movements should cost some Spirit Power, but it should be in a bearable range.

  Most importantly, no matter how he interacted with the Mystery, it should not incite a deeper reaction from the Trial Space. Because there was no higher level Mystery. At least not of the Mystery he was interacting with. Probably. It was an Artificial Mystery after all. In any case, this was the perfect opportunity to complete his experiment. So, when the projection of the Mystery began a new cycle, Alnea also began his experiment.

  Reaching out to one of the layers of the Oren fog closest to him, the one he was concentrating all his senses on, he pushed into its fabric right where one of the ripples were forming, before pulling his finger away, leaving behind a dimple in his wake. A dimple, which was soon smoothened out by the Mystery manifesting around him. A reaction that Alnea had already expected.

  As the representative of the void that was being projected, the Oren fog could recover from even being torn apart, let alone a small bump in one of its layers. Naturally, just a simple poke from his finger was not enough to disrupt the manifestation of the void. Still, it was enough to increase the intensity of the ripple he had interfered with. Consequently, the wave that came from the ripple was also of a much higher intensity, strong enough overwhelm all the other waves in its layer.

  And so, what should have been a cacophony of countless waves clashing with each other, became a symphony of one giant wave overwhelming all the other waves with its domineering power. In the end, the only thing left behind by the clash of waves was a giant wave that slowly merged into the very fabric of the void. Not too deeply, of course. The wave stayed on the surface of the void, fluctuating perpetually, becoming one with the void itself, guarding its fabric against external attacks. Or interference.

  In contrast, when he dampened the ripple, it created even more chaos in the cacophony of the waves. Though the interference succeeded in preventing the waves from collapsing the void, it still left its fabric weak, and vulnerable. Especially with the tiny little waves still dancing around its length. Just a single touch, and the entire layer of the Oren fog came breaking down, turning into small particles, returning back to the cycle it had broken away from.

  Weakening and strengthening the fabric of space, Alnea noted down, before continuing with his experiments. This time, instead of going for their source, he interacted with the waves directly. Of course, he could not stop the waves from clashing with each other. That was the inherent nature of the waves of the void. Still, at least he could make them resonate with each other.

  Unsurprisingly, the results of his second experiment were quite consistent with the results of his first experiment. No matter what he did, the end result was always either strengthening or weakening of the fabric of space. The only difference was the condition for the two results. When exactly half of the waves resonated with each other, the cacophony of the waves would all come together to create a symphony, imperceptibly strengthening and guarding the layer it was vibrating in, while at other times, the waves continued to bring their cacophony wherever they went.

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  Alnea felt as if he was getting closer to the essence of the Mystery. Still, just to be sure, he continued with his experiment, this time, waiting until the waves had clashed with each other, tearing apart the layer of Oren fog they were vibrating in, before sticking his hand into the hole that the waves had torn. But that was not enough.

  From what he had observed, the fabric of the void, when torn apart, acted like a sheet of water, with tiny particles acting as its droplets, flowing together to recover and regain their form. If he kept his hand stuck into the hole, there was a chance that the void might just heal around his hand. Although such a result would also confirm one of his thoughts, it was not the result he was looking for.

  So, before the droplets could recover, and band together, he forced them away from the layer they were flowing in. Or at least tried to. Forcing Oren from one layer to another, even if it was just artificial Oren that he was dealing with, was not easy. It was like pressing a pebble against a rock, hoping that the pebble would become a part of the rock. Of course, his attempts would not work.

  Still, at least his efforts were not completely in vain. Although the tiny droplets of Oren refused to merge into other layers—or maybe the other layers of Oren refused to take in some abandoned droplets of their brethren— he was able to keep them away long enough to observe what he was waiting for. The reaction of the void itself, the layer that had lost a part of itself.

  At first, the void did not seem to react to his actions at all, allowing him to force parts of its fabric away. As time passed though, he noticed some strange, unnatural undulations spreading around him. Around the broken void, to be precise. It was just that he could not point out the source of the undulations. No, not just their source. He could not even observe the undulations either. Still, he could feel them. The undulations. Familiar, yet strange. Kind of like…

  Like the summons of Mysteries. The strange undulations, they were the kind that Mysteries made when they were summoned. Except, there were no Mysteries to be summoned. Maybe, if the Mystery was natural, and if he was in the Origin Sea, then the undulations could have been summoning another Mystery associated with itself. But he was not in the Origin Sea. He was in a Trial Space. Not to mention that the Mystery was artificial. How could it summon another Mystery?

  …Because it was not, Alnea noted, just as the undulations reached the parts of the void that had been torn away from its fabric, calling them back to their rightful place. And they responded in kind, diving into the endless folds of the space almost instantaneously, following the call in a dimension yet unknown to him, a dimension he could not hear or see, taking only a fraction of moment to reappear right where the void had been torn apart.

  When all the droplets of the Oren fog came back though, they found a hand sticking into the hole, preventing them from merging back together. So, they joined together, and pushed his hand away, before merging back into a whole, effectively repairing the void, and completing their mission. And just like that, the Mystery completed its cycle once again, beginning another cycle in its endless rounds of destruction and recovery.

  Letting go of the breath he was holding, Alnea retrieved his outstretched hand, and stepped out of the range of the Mystery. He had already comprehended most of the Mystery’s secret. Next, all that he had to do was to create its prototype, and the Trial would be over. Of course, creating the prototype was not going to be easy. Especially with how varied the Mystery was.

  It was the first time that Alnea had seen an Initial Stage Mystery with four different effects, with two of them being exactly opposite of each other. One of them even could even allow him to tap into teleportation, if only in one direction. It was just that the expression of the Mystery was crude. Yes, the Mystery could help him achieve teleportation, but only if he dared to catch hold of broken fragments of space. Not even Mystic Wanderers would dare to do something so suicidal.

  Yet, flawed as the Mystery was, it was not without its good points. Its crude expression should make it easier for him to find a common point between the different parts of the Mystery. He just had to connect those points, and his prototype would be a ready. He would still have to do some tests, and maybe even try a couple of different combinations, but breaking a record did not seem to as far out of his reach as he had thought it would be.