CHAPTER 206: SPATIAL CONFINEMENT DILEMMA

CH206 Spatial Confinement Dilemma

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Spatial energy was the very essence that fuelled all phenomena related to space.

If one were to interpret it through the concept of particle–wave duality, then Spatial Energy could be seen as space itself in the form of energy.

As such, Spatial Energy inherently ignored the confines of physical or material space.

Rather than being bound by space, it instead fuelled or activated phenomena connected to that space—and was consumed in the process.

A simple example could be seen in Alex’s Sanctuary Pocket Dimension.

Whenever motes of Spatial Energy were produced by the Voidheart Core, they merged with the boundaries of the Pocket Dimension—most likely strengthening or enhancing the dimensional space in some way Alex had yet to determine.

Since he could actually see the motes, Alex was able to confirm this trait of Spatial energy

He reached out and closed his fingers around one of the seemingly slow-moving motes.

The moment he confined the mote in his fist, he felt an instinctive reaction from his body—one he was very familiar with.

It was the same instinct all mages possessed, allowing them to draw in absorbable energy (mana) for cultivation, to refine their Mana Heart, and—albeit to a far lesser extent than Warriors—to temper their bodies.

Essentially, his body was asking him if he wished to absorb the Spatial Energy.

Alex refused.

Immediately, the energy—finding no work to do within the confines of his hand—shifted to a different oscillation frequency within the surrounding fabric of space and phased straight through his flesh.

Without the Spirit Sights ability of his Truth-Seeker Eyes, he would have missed the entire phenomenon.

Well, then again, without Spirit Sights, he wouldn’t have even seen the motes in the first place.

He watched as the mote drifted freely through the Sanctuary Pocket Dimension’s stable Space, unreactive, until it touched the dome’s ceiling.

There, it merged with the fabric of space, dispersing outward to fuel... something.

It was much like watching a single drop of water fall into a calm pool.

The effect wasn’t immediately visible unless the pool itself showed some noticeable change.

Following this analogy, the dome’s ceiling was the pool. And since no obvious change appeared—with the spatial energy’s impact being far too negligible for now—Alex couldn’t determine what exactly the mote had done.

Regardless, this free, unconfined drifting of Spatial Energy motes was a disadvantage for his purposes.

What was the point of all the trouble to produce the energy if it would simply float away?

He needed a way to gather, confine, and store the energy—and then be extract and use it whenever he wished.

’Essentially, I need to create a Spatial Energy Battery.’

Alex rubbed his chin, now showing a faint layer of hair after his time in the Dankrot Forest.

But the real question was—how did one create a storage device for an energy that, by its very nature, could not be confined?

Alex sifted through his mental library—painstakingly built by his Eidetic Memory and enriched by the vast archives of the DragonHold Enclave’s public library.

Even the most brilliant of spatial mages had struggled with this very problem.

In most project requiring Spatial energy, the standard practice was to extract the energy from a spatial resource on the sport to fuel said project. It was very rare if not impossible to find a battery-like power source providing the energy on demand.

Fortunately, however, unlike most challenges Alex faced in his projects, this one actually had a publicly revealed solution.

That alone surprised him... until he read it.

The so-called solution was a special alloy—an innovation born from the combined efforts of Grandmaster Spatial Mages, Forgesmiths, Alchemists, Runesmiths, Enchanters, and three other highly specialised professions formed from combinations of the latter four.

An alloy whose creation required the cooperation of at least seven, possibly even ten or more, Grandmasters.

One could already imagine the prohibitive cost.

The materials alone were rarer and harder to acquire than even the priceless Nullcore Crystal Merlin had given him. Heck, they weren’t even on the same scale.

In short, it was a solution feasible only for immensely powerful organisations—like nations.

In fact, according to the document detailing the alloy, only the Five Major Empires were known to possess it.

It was a key component of the Empires’ interplanar investigation and discovery programs—an exclusive asset of the royal families, which was used to control their vassal nobles and ensure loyalty.

’This isn’t an academic article meant to share knowledge about the alloy. It’s basically propaganda to flaunt the power of the Empires.’ Alex mused.

Whatever solutions this world had already devised were far beyond his current reach, given his present level of power and wealth.

While he could perhaps rely on the DragonHold Enclave for former, and maybe on his father for latter, Alex didn’t want to.

Instead, he took it as a challenge for his Rune-Tech platform.

One of the cornerstones of Rune-Tech was its ability to provide solutions where conventional magic failed.

And it did so by fusing the power of runes with his memories of science and technological principles from his previous life.

A saying from that previous life came to mind:

’We stand on the shoulders of giants.’

That phrase was practically a guiding principle of his Rune-Tech.

"Since I can’t find the solution in available magical knowledge... I should look to science and technology," he murmured.

Obviously, Spatial Energy hadn’t existed in his previous life. But that didn’t mean there was nothing comparable.

Focusing on its nature—its resistance to both spatial and material confinement—Alex recalled phenomena from his old world with similar traits.

Unsurprisingly, he found his lead within the realm of quantum mechanics—the very principles that would have governed Spatial Energy if it had existed back then.

Then again, perhaps it had existed... just discovered by quantum physicists under a different name.

Either way, his thoughts settled on two well-known examples—antimatter and plasma.

Both were staples of physics. And both were impossible to contain through simple "material confinement."

Metal, glass, plastic, flesh, wood—it didn’t matter. No material could safely hold either.

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