Leonel continued to tinker around, testing out several ideas. Each one worked about as well as he expected them to, but he felt that there was still much more to this Simplicity than he knew. It felt like there was no ceiling to it.

And by the same token, it didn't feel like there was a ceiling to Complexity either.

At some point, the two melded into one and he shifted from one discipline to the other depending on the circumstances. At the same time, his view of the world began to subtly change in unexpected ways, namely in the methods by which he used and applied Force.

Just in general, there was nothing about Crafting that shouldn't necessarily be applicable to combat. It was a bit harder to see those paths, but it wasn't impossible either.

It was trickier to, say, come up with the perfect Force Art to use in the middle of combat. When you were Crafting, you had essentially all the time in the world to think of little quirks and take into account several possible factors.

In battle, though, the situation changed many times a minute even if you were in the Third Dimension, let alone at Leonel's current Realm of strength.

By this point, Leonel's current opponents made the thinking speed he had one been extremely proud of back in the Dimensional Verse seem like nothing more than a joke.

Of course, he had likewise left that level behind long ago, but it was a fact that as of now, the situation of a battle could change hundreds, thousands of times a second, even.

Leonel was confident that most of the enemies on his level couldn't match his speed of thought, not even remotely.

The main issue was that he needed to be even faster than that if he wanted to use it in combat. Either that, or he would need to start applying his Simulation abilities in combat and reading what would likely happen instead of reacting to it.

Unfortunately, that was also easier said than done.

All that said, the matter of combat was actually quite far from Leonel's mind at the moment. He was completely immersed in the world of Crafting.This was clearly something he had done on purpose. The less he spent thinking about other things, the less often his mind would drift to Aina and what she was likely going through right this moment.

He knew that this was the best choice, he even knew that Aina was probably enjoying herself right this moment-she had always been a battle maniac. But that didn't mean that he liked it.

The world needed to know that there wasn't just one Leonel of the Human Race, and they needed to plant a flag for themselves that existed outside of the God Beasts.

Aina could do that with far greater ease than Leonel ever could.

Even though no one knew that he was a Fawkes, and they also didn't know that he had both halves of the Northern Star Lineage Factor within him, he had too many connections with them.

He was a Wise Star Order. He controlled the Vast Dream Pavilion. He was even a Destruction Sovereign.

If he was the face of the Human Race, it would only lead to more and more problems.

However, Aina was very much human, far more human than even Leonel who was technically also a quarter Demon.

Although she was a Brazinger, Leonel couldn't find any information on the Brazinger family in the wider world, and that was even with the Vast Dream Pavilion and the Life Tablet as conduits for information.lights

All things considered, the Brazinger family, and the four Great Families in general, were unknown entities.

His wife was the perfect face for the Human Race and he had to allow her to be that, letting her stand where he most definitely could not.

There was also another problem with him being too grand as well... he hadn't forgotten about the Demoness.

The further up in the world he moved, the closer he got to that woman.

Even though he was trying to avoid the topic, Leonel's mind couldn't help but drift toward Thorne.

The fact he used Dream Force... the fact he had violet scales, and those horns...

If he was completely unrelated to that Race, he wouldn't believe it.

But the worst part was that Thorne was just an ant. Leonel could tell that his bloodline was incredibly thin, and yet he could stand near the very pinnacle of this tournament.

That only really meant one thing... Thorne was a lot like Lumina who was an Owlan, but so distant from their main bloodlines that she couldn't even count as a Demi-God.

And that meant that, quite clearly, the Demoness was a Demi-God at worst.

And in the worst case scenario for him, she might very well be a God.

Unlike the Brazingers, Leonel didn't dare to try and learn too much information about that Race. He had broken free from the woman, but if he learned too much about her, gathering up too much information, deduced too well... that connection between them could very well be re-established.

And this time, he wouldn't be a world away, he wouldn't be able to hide behind the shield of an Incomplete World and an angry Regulator.

This time he would be directly in her line of fire.

The matter of the True Dream Plane was something he couldn't change. He had to act or else the Human Bubbles would be finished. In all likelihood, she was already aware of him.

However, being aware wasn't the problem. She had likely been alerted the moment he broke their connection.

What he couldn't allow was another connection to be formed. By then, he wouldn't be able to do anything without a pair of eyes looming over his shoulder.

CRACK.

A Craft shattered in Leonel's hand, the fragile glass falling into fragments that were unable to pierce his skin.

He took a breath and exhaled.