As soon as He finished speaking, an indescribable premonition rose from the depths of Edward's spirituality: the ritual for ascending to Sequence 1 had been completed.
Edward froze, stunned and bewildered. "Why?"
"Didn't I just explain? You and I are now partners. The sooner you complete your advancement, the sooner I can rid myself of these shackles and regain freedom."
"But…how did you do it?"
Edward's thoughts were in disarray. "I can understand you transferring ownership of this world to me…but why does that count as me completing the ritual of 'constructing a world'?"
He shrugged with a smile. "Because this pathway was always jointly held by the two of us. If I complete the ritual, it's equivalent to you completing it. So the moment you became the master of this world, the ritual naturally finished in an instant."
"You can…do that?"
"The facts are already before you. What's there not to believe?"
He rose and opened His arms. "Go on, feel it carefully. From this moment onward, this world belongs to you. In theory, you may do whatever you wish to it—like having administrator privileges in a game."
"You can also think of it this way: in this world, your 'imagination' is limitless. Any change you make is essentially you projecting your imagination into reality."
Edward did not become excited. Instead, he frowned.
"But you clearly never modified this world at will…except for Arianna, Salazar Slytherin, the goblins, and that Crumple-Horned Snorkack—things that didn't really impact the plot. So the truth is, altering the world isn't without cost, is it?"
He raised a finger and waggled it lightly. "First of all, as the Creator of this world, altering anything carries no price at all—none whatsoever. Just like how you can write and rewrite your novel however you want. What cost would there be?"
He paused briefly, then continued, "Secondly, there is actually only one thing I truly altered by initiative: saving Arianna. When I first read the novels, I always felt she was incredibly pitiful. Since saving her wouldn't cause major consequences as long as Dumbledore and the others never discovered it, I went ahead with it."
"Oh, and later she helped store a few souls using the underworld inside her. As for Slytherin, the Snorkack, and the rest—those really weren't my doing."
"They were simply 'lucky' beings who happened to be contaminated by the overflow of Sefirot. In the entire world, there are only a handful of such people—you can count them on one hand."
Edward did not interrupt. He waited for Him to continue.
"But you aren't wrong."
He shifted into a more comfortable posture, leaning sideways against the seat.
"I—or rather, you, now—can indeed alter the world freely without any cost. But that brings a problem. If you change too much, this world will gradually become less and less 'real'. It would turn into something like the sloppy stories Ince Zangwill wrote with the Feather Quill—full of coincidences and forced outcomes. Fake at a glance."
Edward suddenly understood. "And the Sequence 1 ritual demands that the constructed world be real."
"That's the first point."
He held up one finger, then a second. "As for the second, you'll understand once you ascend to Sequence 1."
Edward pondered for a few seconds. "Is it related to the Sequence 0 advancement ritual?"
"Mm. Sharp as ever."
"Since we're on the topic," Edward continued, meeting His eyes, "I have another question. To ascend to Sequence 0, one must fuse three Sequence 1 characteristics and the unique characteristic of the pathway. But the pathway you designed uses Door Pathway potions combined with characteristics from other pathways. So what about Sequence 0? Are you expecting me to fuse the remaining two Key of Stars characteristics plus a Sequence 0 characteristic?"
"Of course not."
He shook His head and explained, "The reason each potion required additional characteristics from other pathways was to steal certain traits from them—combining them to assemble the 'Creator's' authority. And as for selecting the Door pathway for the primary potion ingredients, there were two reasons."
He paused for a moment. "Did you forget? This idea originally came from you."
"The first reason was convenience—using the Door pathway made it easy to enter and leave the Harry Potter world."
"The second reason is related to the Sequence 0 advancement ritual. Also, the Door Pathway's uniqueness isn't your true uniqueness."
"My suggestion is…why don't you brew the Sequence 1 potion right now and drink it in one go? Then we can continue talking."
Edward frowned. "Why not just tell me directly?"
"Hehe, keep a little suspense, will you? Don't you think every advancement feels like opening a blind box? Full of surprises?"
"No. Absolutely not."
He let out an "oh," waved His hand dismissively, and said, "Fine, fine. If you're worried that drinking the potion in front of me will let me do something to you, then just pretend you never heard my suggestion."
Edward sidestepped the topic and continued, "Then what is the uniqueness for my Sequence 0 advancement? And where do I obtain it?"
The "Creator" grinned.
"Do it yourself—self-sufficiency."
"???"
He shook His head with a laugh.
"You still haven't realised it? If you possess enough imagination, you can freely fantasise, freely construct. Whether it's the other two Sequence 1 Beyonder characteristics or even the uniqueness—you can just hand-craft them."
"???"
This time, Edward was genuinely stunned.
Hand-crafting Sequence 1 characteristics and uniqueness?
That was playing on an entirely different level.
"Come on now, this pathway was something I reverse-engineered from my original authority. The entire pathway can be hand-crafted—so what's so strange about crafting a couple of Sequence 1 characteristics?"
He paused, then admitted with a chuckle, "Alright, maybe I exaggerated a little."
"Hand-crafting the two missing Sequence 1 characteristics is no problem. But the uniqueness that symbolises authority truly can't be hand-crafted. Still—there is something that can perfectly replace an uniqueness, isn't there?"
"What?"
"Why, the Harry Potter world, of course."
"…"
Edward didn't fully understand yet, but he was utterly shocked.
Using an entire world as the uniqueness—
What the hell kind of genius idea was that?!
But after thinking it through, it actually made sense.
His authority originally came from the Harry Potter world. That world was also the culmination of the "I will…" power. Using it as the symbol of his authority was…strangely perfect.
"But to accomplish all of this, you still rely on imagination."
He blinked playfully. "So, where do you obtain such vast imagination?"
Edward paused, responding instinctively, "Didn't you just say that in the Harry Potter world, I can do anything I—"
"Exactly! But that only applies inside the Harry Potter world. Here—whether you've reached Sequence 0 or not—you are the omnipotent Creator. Even if Outer Gods entered, they would be restrained by you."
He lifted His chin and laughed softly.
"But what about outside this place?"
"You haven't forgotten, right? The Harry Potter world may be exceedingly close to 'real', but it is ultimately a fantasy world I constructed. In essence, it has no fundamental difference from the world inside Groselle's Travels."
"So its status is lower than that of the real LoTM world. That is why magic from this side becomes drastically weaker when facing Beyonders. Even someone like Dumbledore—the greatest wizard of his age—might not be able to defeat most Sequence 5s, or even Sequence 6s, despite using his full strength."
"This imbalance of status comes from a difference in dimensions. If the real LoTM world is three-dimensional, then this world is two-dimensional. One dimensional layer lower—an absolute gulf. Just like how Son Goku from Dragon Ball, even with rainbow-colored hair, still can't harm the person reading the manga."
His words sent Edward deep into thought. Only after a long pause did he ask, "Then why didn't you just—"
"Create a world like Groselle's Travels? Because that world is fundamentally a projection of the sea of collective subconscious. It is fake. More importantly—did you forget why I constructed the Harry Potter world in the first place? It was to utilise the 'I will…' power here to resist the awakening of the Oldest One."
He lifted His head, lost briefly in memory.
"In fact, in the beginning, I even considered creating a Doraemon world. After all, that place has many rule-based tools that manipulate causality. But later I realised—tools are still just tools. They can't solve the root problem."
"But eventually, I understood something. The authority I first grasped in the LoTM world actually came from the Harry Potter world I had been in previously. Perhaps the LoTM world is to me what the Harry Potter world once was—one dimension lower."
Edward's thoughts spun rapidly along with His explanation.
"If the Harry Potter world's status and dimension are lower, then why does time in the LoTM always freeze whenever I'm in the Harry Potter world? But when I'm in the LoTM world, time in the Harry Potter world still flows normally? Shouldn't it be the opposite?"
"Because I am here."
"What?"
"Whenever you return here, the LoTM world doesn't stop. This world merely accelerates infinitely relative to the other side, creating the illusion that time over there has stopped. That's to prevent you from missing important events. Of course, to avoid damaging the world's realism, I can only do this occasionally—and not for long."
"Then this time, when I returned…"
"Nope~ Right now, the two worlds are completely synchronised."
That answer surprised Edward once again. After thinking for a moment, he asked, "Then why is it that I spend different amounts of time in each world every time I cross over?"
"That's because you were too weak. Although the Door Pathway's uniqueness is inside you, you couldn't truly use it. So I had to choose suitable timing windows for you to cross safely."
He pinched His chin.
"The simplest analogy is the relationship between Earth and the Sun. Earth revolves in an elliptical orbit, so the distance varies—sometimes near, sometimes far. Every time you returned was simply when the distance between the two worlds was at its closest."
He paused. "Of course, it's only an analogy—they're not literally orbiting each other. Anyway, if you have any questions, ask them now. I still need to go back to sleep and wrestle with the Oldest One later."
"Questions…"
Edward's mind raced.
Suddenly, he clapped his hands.
"Wait. You just said that in the Harry Potter world, I'm an invincible 'Creator', and even Outer Gods would be suppressed if they entered. So if I pull those Outer Gods into that world…wouldn't that let me deal with them easily?"
———
[Note]: Don't forget to VOTE. It keeps me motivated.