The unreality and fantasy of the truly impossible withdrew to make way for what is truly real, the starry sky under fanciful imagination was replaced by the dull color of hastily painted wood, the infinite plains of grass black as crow feathers were replaced by the comfort of a bed comfortable but boring in many ways, the bloody fragrance of flowers was replaced by the salty aroma of the distant sea, the infinite mountains disappeared from sight to become wooden walls painted in a gray tone, the infinite tower was replaced by himself, that symbolism was clear: he is both the "earth" and the "sky" and the "tower" itself. The praises of the angels were dimmed, now mere whispers in the back of his conscious mind, waiting for God to entrust them with a purpose.
His eyes opened to observe reality again after what could well have been months, weeks, days, hours or mere seconds? Who knows.
"Time loses its meaning when you have eternity in your hands" he thought to himself as the unreal retreated to the plane of imagination.
Which is a little funny because at the moment of arriving in this universe he was quite anxious, not only for power, but also to gain more time, but now he had practically all the time at his disposal, he felt a little empty because of it. No, empty is not the word he's looking for, lack of motivation would be a better analogy for his current self.
At least those were his thoughts momentarily, but that didn't last long since there are still many things he himself can't do in the material plane, that motivated him enough to see how far he could go himself as an existence.
"So much sentimentality did affect me a bit, now I think about that nonsense of running out of purpose, hahaha what a lousy joke"
A brief but sincere smile came to his face at such fantasy and absurdity, he found it truly amusing but now he really wanted to dive into some research he had been postponing and could only be completed in the material plane, for many reasons.
Adrian's gaze turned to the half-finished gauntlet on his desk, disassembled like a computer with all its components exposed but that didn't matter, he just needed to know the time.
16:42/21/03/2010
Wow, it was quite a long time, actually almost six days since that dinner with Connie and Nora's family. Although it felt like more time, but meh, that's not important.
Most likely some people want to know how he's doing right now, but there's no harm in keeping them in suspense for a few more hours, after all, what he really wants right now is to relax, even just a little, and do what he wants.
Right now he wanted to investigate and that's what he would do. First something he had been postponing mostly because he didn't have the means for it at that time.
Compare the physical and spiritual composition of Nora. Now, how would he do that if Nora wasn't here right now? Actually, that would be simple and something monumentally complex, also involving abstract things like time and space, information and analysis itself.
But first he would have to make a few things clear, he wasn't someone dumb enough to use his power recklessly, he's not like those protagonists who didn't know how to make use of the power they had or at least he has that slightly arrogant view of himself in just that aspect, in all other things he couldn't care less, he is himself and that's what matters.
Now to the serious stuff, as is already known before the incident of the self-conclusive time loop that he had to resolve with Nora, he was studying the portals that use gems and the travel method Leon uses which, although similar, are essentially different, as usual he failed at the beginning resulting in the observation of two different places at the same time. For a failure it was really more of a long-term gain than anything else, even more so with the sphere of reality after those time travels.
Oh how he loves bending the rules without breaking them, it's the best thing of all in his opinion, knowing that you're doing something that's not really possible but still within the rules, being subject to certain rules that you can't break but no one really tells you that the rules can't be interpreted differently.
Omniscience, or so he would like to say, but he's not so arrogant as to give himself that much credit. Now what he was doing in essence was taking a "moment" in the past and bringing it to the present or at least the "total information" of said "moment" which could be summarized as now having all the information that makes up Nora herself, to give you an idea it's as if you took a picture and that picture could be affected by x-rays, that you could take DNA from a being in the "picture" but why stop at a "picture"? couldn't he use a "video" in this analogy to know how everything interacted at every moment that has already passed or is happening? the answer is yes.
Now the questions behind it, is that omniscience? the answer is no, since for that he would not only have to know the future or all possible futures but also have to understand all information and he hasn't reached that point yet. If he had to define what he has achieved it would be more like the construction of a "spell" that allows him to see the equivalent of the Akashic records although the "spell" itself had many conditions that needed to be fulfilled to use it, such as needing to be in "reality" for it to be effective, after all how can you see the record of something without having/being in that something?. Another condition is that he could only "see" that information, not interact with it, but at least that had a loophole which was quite simple to find: copy the information and use the "copy" as a file that could be modified. Another greater limitation was the energy cost, it consumed energy while the spell was active, a lot of energy in fact, the total of what he had was spent only on that spell so he couldn't use his power for anything else, the most curious thing is that he had to "borrow" power because otherwise the spell itself wouldn't work with just his own power, so he anchored the internal functioning of the spell to the collective of the universe's mind which boils down to using what "people" think omniscience is and also the symbols of it to be able to spend less energy on the spell but even so that was the most he could save in energy, another disadvantage of using said symbology is that it had a temporary effect on him, a third eye grew on his forehead while using the spell, the eye wasn't real but couldn't be hidden by any means, because it was a small representation of the concept of omniscience.
And all he obtained was raw information so I had to interpret what I was seeing, which is an absurd amount because it is the EVERYTHING of something, from its atoms to its movement in the flow of time, the space it composes, the abstract concepts that also give it shape, how energy moves in said "moment" which is complicated to understand, it's as if you had all knowledge in the palm of your hand but it was written in a language too complicated to interpret, a language that you yourself do not fully understand, well that's my situation right now.
Anyway, digressions aside, what Adrian saw in the "copy" of Nora's information was, for the most part, incomprehensible. He barely managed to interpret one detail: her physical body was perfect. Disturbingly perfect.
Every atom, every strand of DNA was arranged with unnatural precision. Her genetic configuration matched that of the humans of this world, but without imperfections, without errors, without irregularities.
More disturbing still, an unknown energy ran through her body, forming patterns that extended from her gem to the last corner of her being. It did not resemble anything like the psychic energy of the soul. This energy was tinged with concepts, raw concepts he didn't know, but one thing he did know was that this had nothing to do with psychic energy.
As for her immaterial part... he understood absolutely nothing, I mean he could say it was the same energy that ran through Nora's physical part but this one was more, how to say it, "ethereal" would be the word he's looking for.
Adrian's third eye was slowly closing and the psychic energy returned to normal. But before it could close a noise reached his ears, his eyes turned to the window and what he saw pulled him out of the complex thoughts of the investigation.
"What the hell happened" he said as a green version with natural marks of Nora was at his window, not one, not two, but many.