CH278 Interspatial Formation

***

Alex rummaged through the storage area of the Sanctuary Dimension, gathering every material he needed for his latest craft.

Given the sheer unpredictability of what he was about to attempt, he brought out the highest-grade beast scroll and rune ink pigments in his possession.

This particular scroll—a Tier IV Master-level Rune Scroll—had been made from the hide of the Earth Drake Alex slew during his expedition into the Dankrot Forest. The hide had then been personally processed into rune scrolls by a reputable pseudo-Grandmaster craftsman from the DragonHold Enclave.

Getting the craftsman to move in person had cost Alex an arm and a leg, but the result was worth it. These scrolls were his most prized possessions, not just because they came from one of his hardest beast kill, but also because they were perfect for his Interspatial project.

The Drake hide hit a rare sweet spot: durable enough to withstand the strain of the spatial formation, inherently magical enough to aid activation, and far more affordable than the few superior alternatives. Anything stronger in either former aspects—let alone both—would have cost him multiple times more.

The pigments were no less special.

A full half of them had been processed from Void Dust, materials faintly resonant with spatial properties, and naturally several times pricier than Alex's usual rune inks.

All together, the beast scroll and rune ink pigments represented an investment of nearly fifty thousand gold coins.

In other words, this single attempt at an Interspatial Artefact would cost him the equivalent of a military-grade Tier II Magic Armour... at the very least!

"I'd better succeed, or I'll have burned enough gold to arm a Dark Hound," Alex muttered. Then, with a dry chuckle: "No pressure at all."

As always, he began with meticulous preparation. Following a formula refined through countless trials, Alex processed the pigments into three separate precursor liquids. Between his Truth-Seeker Eyes and OmniRune's constant overwatch, his precision was all but mechanical.

Once done, he stopped. Mixing the precursors too soon would create the final ink, rich with unstable spatial properties. Like pure Spatial Energy, it couldn't be contained for long before dissipating.

So Alex resolved to mix only as much as his Rune Pen's cartridge could hold at a time.

After a short meditation to restore himself to peak mental state, he activated a projection from his Beta Bracer. A glowing formation appeared on the projector screen—his design for the Interspatial Storage Space.

The formation projected on his Beta Bracer was, at its core, a stripped-down version of the Spatial Formation Alex had deduced during his expedition into Pangea's Subspace.

The same Spatial Formation that gave birth to his Sanctuary pocket dimension.

Through painstaking study, he had pieced together the functions of a host of its countless components. Bit by bit, he had dismantled it, removing everything he deemed unnecessary while preserving the essentials.

The original formation had the power to birth a plane, complete with life-sustaining properties woven into its very structure. Alex had no need for such extravagance. He cut out every element that nurtured life, leaving behind only the parts required to create a stable storage space.

Now, the two critical factors lay before him: size and time.

The larger he made the space, the greater the Spatial Energy it would consume to sustain itself. Likewise, the more he skewed the balance away from time—ensuring items stored within would never age or spoil—the higher the spatial energy cost would be. It was, in the end, a delicate tug-of-war between space and time in the fragile balance of Spacetime.

To stabilise it further, Alex incorporated balancing features he had discovered when working on the SECS—those strange stabilising influences introduced by the Bonsai Tree and Daddy Golden Energy.

What remained was a formation that, if his theory held true, would give birth to the Interspatial Storage Space he had been dreaming of.

He took a final moment to commit the design to memory—though with his eidetic mind it was more ritual than necessity—before beginning the true work.

A fresh sheet of Drake-hide beast scroll was set upon the Rune Table. Carefully, he mixed the precursors into a single cartridge of ink, the rich spatial resonance almost humming in his hand.

Once mixed, the clock was ticking. This ink was volatile, making every second matter.

Without hesitation, Alex began. His hand, steady as steel, moved with practiced precision across the scroll.

He was pragmatic in life—taking setbacks and victories alike in stride. But here, with his craft, he was borderline a perfectionist. He never allowed any room for errors.

Not taking any chances, he pulled out all the stops—heightening his concentration to the absolute limit, pushing his Truth-Seeker eyes to their limit, and prompting OmniRune to watch for even the tiniest millimetre of error.

Line after line, stroke after stroke, curve after curve… every movement of the pen carried an eerie level of precision.

It was less like a human at work and more like a machine.

Alex unconsciously slipped into the zone—a state of supreme focus and output.

Before he realised it, he had already broken his previous record of four continuous hours of inscription, pushing it to a staggering six.

He might have gone even further if not for the ink cartridge running dry.

As he reached for the precursor jars to mix another batch, his vision suddenly wavered.

He barely managed to steady himself enough to collapse onto the nearby chair before everything went black.

---

Alex woke some time later, groggy and disoriented.

A glance at the nearby clock artefact told him he had been unconscious for roughly three hours –a timeframe which aligned with the estimate of his internal clock.

The moment he tried to move, a sharp throb cut through his skull, followed by an even stronger pang from his stomach.

A wry smile tugged at his lips.

"Zone is no easy state to sustain. My body and mind were drained dry without me even realising it," Alex muttered. "Still, for pushing myself up to four times past what someone of my rank should be able endure… this price is more than fair."

He could barely move, reduced to crawling towards a side table where he had left some rations. Luckily, he had set up his modular rune station in the resting area after the Nest Queen's cocoon had claimed most of his work area. Otherwise, the crawl would have been far worse.

Yet, when he finally tore into the food, the rations that should have half-filled his belly vanished instantly, swallowed by a hunger that felt like a bottomless void.

Alex lay at the table for several minutes before he felt a trickle of energy return to his body. A little mana had also begun to replenish, thanks to the OmniRune Core's passive energy absorption function and his Everspring Rune.

It wasn't much, but it was enough for him to stagger back to his feet and drag himself to the storage area, where he tore through every edible item he could find.

Five full meals—his portion size—vanished in moments, yet he only felt half full.

Fortunately, his Spiritual Force had recovered slightly, enough for him to peer inward at his condition.

What he saw was sobering. Entering the Zone had drained almost every reserve—down to his very fat stores. His bloodline energy had been forced to intervene, halting the collapse, and that last-minute effort was what had caused him to black out.

"Fortunately, the ink ran out before I did. I'd have no tears left to cry if six hours of work and expensive materials went to waste."

Looking deeper, Alex finally understood why his recovery was sluggish.

The intervention of his bloodline had triggered an expansion of his body's storage capacity. It was as though his very physiology—or perhaps his bloodline itself—had decided this wouldn't be a one-off (foolish) ordeal, and had begun preparing for the next.

"Hmm… if my body's reacting this way, does that mean it will keep increasing capacity the more I push myself?" Alex rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

His conclusion aligned perfectly with what his bloodline anticipated. Alex Fury was after all not the kind of man to stop here at one bout of foolishness.

---

He returned to the rune table to check the state of his work. Luckily, when he'd noticed the ink running dry, he had already taken steps to properly suspend the session, ensuring no damage to the delicate structure.

He left the Sanctuary space and carried out a quick raid of the kitchen. He ate until he was finally full, then transferred as much readily edible food as was available into the space before returning to the study, where he himself returned to the Sanctuary space

This time, having learnt his lesson, Alex set aside a larger batch of rations within reach, swapped the cartridge, and resumed the session.

Unfortunately, he was unable to re-enter the Zone state. He had to settle for his usual three-to-four-hour session cycle.

Two such sessions later, the array circle for the Interspatial Space was finally complete.

***

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