Chapter 1969: Greedy Considerations

Over the next few days, Rui explored the manifold pocket space that they were in, getting a good understanding of the place that they were in. The pocket manifold was truly very bizarre.

Half of the area was land, while the other half was water that was probably originally part of the lake in the Mellow, the banks on which Rui and Kane had been absorbed into the Mellow Dungeon. From a distance, it resembled a planetoid of equal halves of land and water. The water, originally surrounding the island, had not been merged into a single water body due to the manifold causing the ends to converge spatially.

One of the first things he did was conduct an ecological, topographical, and geographical survey. He also went as far as to convey gravitational surveys with the Riemannian Echo technique.

Naturally, he focused on the parts of the manifold that were outside of the Mellow Dungeon. That required a more dedicated and more focused investigation into the land. Currently, he was just making sure that he didn't miss any of the low-hanging fruits before reaching for the higher ones.

His geographic survey of the entire region indicated that it was only a hundred kilometers in diameter, or circumference, depending on how one looked at it. This yielded a planetoid that was only thirty kilometers or so wide when one looked at it from a distance. It was an extremely small world for a Martial Senior who could cross that distance in extremely short timeframes.

The most interesting results were those yielded by the Riemannian Echo.

Despite the region being born from a four-dimensional manifold, a phenomenon of extreme space-warping, he was unable to detect anything off about gravity, as detected by Riemannian Echo.

He had expected this, even in the Garden of Salvation, and outside of it, he was simply unable to detect the warping of space by the Elder Tree. He expected a similar thing with the Mellow Manifold, and he got exactly what he expected.

It was unpleasant.

He had hoped that he would have been able to gain some precious insights into the nature of the manifold that trapped them inside. One of the reasons that he hoped for this was the fact that he could get his hands on the esoteric substance that allowed for such a magical phenomenon to occur.

It was undoubtedly extraordinarily precious.

He knew this because his background in the Beast Domain allowed him to figure out exactly just how rare such a phenomenon was.

The number of space-time phenomena that had been discovered was scant compared to just how enormous the Beast Domain was. Furthermore, the number of phenomena that were even remotely comparable to what he had seen was limited.

The Elder Tree's spatial isolation was among them, yet not even the Elder Tree had warped reality to such an incredible degree.

"If I can get my hands on it..." His eyes lit up with a hint of greed.

He didn't know exactly how it could help him in his Martial Art endeavors, but he couldn't help but wonder nonetheless. Regardless, it seemed far too precious to let go.

While the gravitational phenomenon of the manifold was unclear, the gravity of the actual Mellow within the manifold was the same as that of Gaia, which Rui had expected. After all, this entire place was a normal part of Gaia, just like other regions.

It appeared that the manifold did not interfere with the gravitational acceleration of the entire place. Apart from that, he was truly unable to detect gravitational anomalies that could potentially harm or hamper them.

That was good overall.

Because, at the current stage of power, he didn't possess the capabilities to deal with gravitational or spatial phenomena. He knew Sage-level beings could, based on Sage Sayfeel and the Elder Tree warping space immensely. If it were a feat limited to the Sage Realm as he had hypothesized, then it would indeed be a long time before he reached that degree of capability.

Regardless, that wasn't necessary here. As long as he disrupted or killed the flora lifeform that was causing the manifold, it would die, and the Mellow would be exposed.

His surveys also supplied more evidence for the existence of a manifold that made ends meet when he conducted his geographic survey. He found strong evidence of sedimentary and geological discontinuity.

These were sharp breaks across a point that suggested the two ends on either side of the point were not originally together. It would only happen if a four-dimensional spatial manifold caused two opposite ends of a region to become spatially connected, causing them to loop over.

Coincidentally, this point was deep underwater in the waters surrounding the land half of the Mellow Manifold.

A point that was completely opposite to where the center of the Mellow Dungeon would have been. This was strong evidence of Rui's hypothesis that the entity causing the Mellow Manifold was at the center of the dungeon.

That was good because it meant that he was on the right track to diagnosing the problem and their circumstances. The worst part would be finding conflicting evidence that would leave him in a bid, unable to create a plan as well as he would have.

The ecological surveys were interesting. The dungeon itself was comprised of layers, each corresponding to a different danger level. The outermost layer was the weakest one, where even ordinary humans could reside at the furthest extremities.

In other words, the entire region of land was part of the Mellow Dungeon, causing it to be much wider spread than even the Shionel Dungeon and the Serevian Dungeon combined. A deeper survey also allowed him to confirm the ecological continuity between the fauna and flora with the Tree of Life, confirming that it was indeed very much within the biosphere of Gaia and not a separate world by any means whatsoever.

Soon enough, he had completed all of his preliminary and initial surveys.