Endless Journey: Infinite Realms

Chapter 49 More Scientific Mumbo-Jumbo

"Hmph!" Lord Gallius retreated backwards as he began to treat Alex and Alina with more caution. "If you aimed for my head earlier, I should have been dead already. Tell me, are you two holding back because you think that you two combined are already more powerful than me?"

"That's up for you to imagine." Alex replied as he tightened his hold on Alina's hand. Alina responded in kind, as her fingers caressed the back of Alex's hand.

Alex suppressed a shiver as he tried to not show a delighted expression on his face.

This seems to have succeeded, as Alina and Asteria did not see any hints of Alex being physically delighted right now.

But aside from being delighted with Alina being touchy with him, Alex was also delighted from the fact that his first Power Synthesis with Alina succeeded.

Attempting a Power Synthesis was an extremely rare and hard thing to do, since only a Traveler and his Companion can perform it.

During a Power Synthesis, the Traveler and his Companion can, in a sense, 'fuse their power'.

Of course it will not be just as simple as that.

First of all, only one power from the Traveler and one power from the Companion can be fused at a time.

This means that it is impossible to fuse two abilities from the Traveler with two abilities from its Companion.

Second, the powers that will be fused must have at least the same origin.

In Alex and Alina's case, both of their powers were Esper Abilities, so there are no problems in fusing them.

And this is what Alex and Alina did.

They fused Alex's EM Wave Manipulation and Alina's Weak Space Manipulation in order to manifest a mutation in their Esper Abilities.

But even if it looks like the Power Synthesis is a very powerful technique, there are some limiters that made Alex hesitant on using it today.

One of this was its usage limit and the other one was the time limit.

According to Asteria, Alex and Alina can only use the Power Synthesis once per mission.

This means that if Alex uses the Power Synthesis today, he will be unable to use it in the Esper World anymore.

Alex will have to wait until he is on a new world in order to use Power Synthesis again.

As for the time limit, a Power Synthesis will only last for 10 minutes, which is considerably short.

Another thing that must be noted was that any new ability gained during Power Synthesis will be temporary and will disappear once the Power Synthesis has finished.

All of these conditions above shows that using a Power Synthesis is a big risk, since there's no way to know what the combination of two different abilities will be.

But Alex and Alina ignored these risks as they knew that with their current strength, their only way to win is to use Power Synthesis.

***************

What Alex and Alina got after using Power Synthesis was an entirely new ability which stemmed from the combination of the wave-particle duality of EM Waves and the alteration ability of Weak Space Manipulation.

This new ability is called Quantum Property Manipulation, and just like what its name says, this ability grants its user the power of manipulate the quantum properties of certain objects.

Alex's attack which wounded Lord Gallius' shoulder earlier was the result of this ability.

Alex was able to have an attack this effective as he manipulated his attack to exhibit a phenomenon called Quantum Tunneling.

**************

In Quantum Tunneling, electrons will have the ability to pass through obstacles blocking its path, as if the electron was 'tunneling' through the obstacles.

This happens due to the dual nature of an electron as a particle and a wave.

In Alex's world, some experiments have already concluded that this phenomenon indeed exists, which led to some applications of this phenomenon in the scientific community.

With Alex knowing the math and principles behind Quantum Tunneling, he vicariously applied this phenomenon on his light attack earlier.

He adjusted the 'tunneling ability' of his light attack in such a way that his light attack was able to pass through Lord Gallius' defense.

And once his light attack was inside Lord Gallius' shoulder, Alex undid the quantum tunneling, which essentially materialized the light attack inside Lord Gallius' shoulder.

Naturally, this kind of move was able to greatly damage Lord Gallius' shoulder.

"Hehehe, seems like I really should just aim for the head." Alex muttered as he wiped the sweat away on his face.

Forcing an electron to undergo quantum tunneling was easy, but forcing the same thing on a light beam was extremely taxing, which was made evident by the fact that Alex was feeling a little tired after doing what he did earlier.

With a jolt, Alex realized that just like any other powerful techniques, he cannot just spam his Quantum Tunneling for a long time.

But even with that limitation, Alex was sure that he had enough Mental Power left to make more attacks.

After all, his Mental Power has changed too.

***********

"Hmph, I do not know what you did to your attack earlier, but I am sure that you cannot just do that many times." Lord Gallius said as he was able to slow the blood flow from his injured shoulder. "You only have a Mental Power of 150, so sooner or later, your attacks will also stop. When that time comes, I will only have to watch for Miss Alina to protect myself."

"That is a good analysis…" Alex muttered as Alina looked at the two of them with mirth. But, that will only apply if my Mental Power really is just 150 right now. However, that is where you are wrong!"

Alex then unleashed 10 more light attacks from his palms, which managed to elicit strangled shouts from Lord Gallius himself.

"Right now, my Mental Power is just the same as Alina's." Alex muttered as he monitored Lord Gallius' situation with an intense gaze. "Because of that, there is no way that I will just run out of Mental Power that quickly."

"You bastard!"

***********************

The reason for why Alex had the same Mental Power as Alina was because of the phenomenon called Quantum Entanglement.

In this phenomenon, two separate particles will have the same exact properties, so much so that they are extremely identical with each other.

Even when the two particles were far away from each other, both of them will still have the same properties.

Not only that, but whatever the first particle experiences will also be experienced by the other particle at the same time.

In short, particles under quantum entanglement will practically have a doppleganger.

Alex and Alina applied this phenomenon on themselves, as Alex began to have some of the properties that Alina had, most notably her Mental Power.

This allowed Alex to have a Mental Power of Tier 999+, which made it easier for him to spam attacks.

Alex tried to not laugh as he realized that for the next 10 minutes, Lord Gallius will face 2 Tier 999+ Espers at the same time, who both have an ability that will let their attacks penetrate Lord Gallius' defense.

"I have heard stories about some Tier Espers defeating Star Espers." Alex muttered as he and Alina slowly approached Lord Gallius.

"From what I can see, today will be the day that these stories will have a new addition. So, if you don't want to get humiliated this badly, do your best to survive, ok?"

"...…."

**************

"Ha!" Of course Lord Gallius will be unhappy after hearing everything that Alex just said.

"Just die already!" Lord Gallius said as he closed his right fist tightly.

At the instant that Lord Gallius did this, massive waves rippled away from him, scattering around all directions.

Every object that these waves collided with all disintegrated, as if there was something in these waves that can easily destroy objects.

Right now, both Alex and Alina were in the path of these waves' trajectory, which meant they will get hit by the waves too!

"So this time, what you are vibrating is the space itself, which produces these waves in space." Alex mumbled as he saw the waves approaching him.

"However, these waves that you produced are different from the gravity waves, since gravity waves only have enough energy in them to nodge particles by few nanometers. These waves that you just produced contains large amounts of energy, courtesy of your vibrations. These energies allowed your waves to be extremely lethal, as they will easily destroy anything that these waves get contact with. And right now, you plan to do the same thing to us, right?"

To Lord Gallius' surprise and dismay, Alex and Alina did not look that worried from the waves, which were obviously one of Lord Gallius' trump cards.

"Woosh…"

The waves passed through both Alex and Alina's body, as if they did not exist there at all.

Lord Gallius had to rub his eyes as he saw that both Alex and Alina's body were flickering in and out of existence.

They seem to disappear everytime a wave hits them, and they only reappear when there are no waves in their position.

"No way…" Lord Gallius muttered as he saw what happened. "This can't be…"

"Have you heard about the Schrodinger's Cat?" Alex said as the last of the waves had vanished. "Ah of course, you do not know about that. Nobody like him existed in this place after all."

"...…"

This time, what Alex used to survive was one of the most famous concept of quantum physics that was practically a paradox in real life.

This concept is Superposition, which deals with the fact that an object can be both something at the same time.

This means that at the right conditions, a living object can be both dead and alive at the same time.

However, Superposition has only been observed in atomic particles, as it was basically impossible for Superposition to happen on large objects.

But with Alex and Alina's new ability, they were able to apply Superposition on themselves!

Before the waves could hit them earlier, Alex and Alina used Superposition so that they can both be 'present' and 'not present' at their current position.

This allowed them to dodge the destructive waves that Lord Gallius just unleashed.

"This is bulls**t!" Lord Gallius attempted to make an attack again, but before he could do so, countless slashes perforated his body, rendering him heavily injured.

Alina lowered her sword at that moment, appreciating her Space Slashes, which all underwent Quantum Tunneling too.

"Argh!"

Upon seeing what happened to him, Lord Gallius found himself unable to say anything.

The pain that he was feeling right now made it hard to speak, and the shock of seeing his own body like this was enough to make him silent too.

But Lord Gallius still managed to say some words before his body gave up.

"Ugh… it seems like I failed…" Lord Gallius' body then fell towards the ground as he lost his consciousness.

Alex deftly caught Lord Gallius, and he deposited him back to his own airship.

"Should we have just killed him?" Alina muttered as she saw what Alex was doing. "Won't it be better that way?"

"Of course not." Alex replied as he closed the door of the airship. "From what I can see, Lord Gallius did not come here out of his own volition. From the looks of it, he has been brainwashed to attack us."

"Brainwashed?" Alina's sharp intake of breath was enough to show that she was surprised. "Was he…"

"I have a suspicion that it was the afro guy who did it." Alex said as he kicked the airship away from him.

"There is no way that Lord Gallius will just follow us like this. From my conversations with him, Lord Gallius is a man of honor. There is no way that he can just do something as shameless as this!"

"So you suspect that the afro guy did something to Lord Gallius, which in turn made him like this." Alina concluded as she looked at the airship with narrowed eyes. "I may not like what you are saying, but your theory… is highly possible."

"That is why I did not kill Lord Gallius." Alex said as he let out a sigh. "He was also just a victim here."

"You are right." Alina said as she vigorously nodded. "Lord Gallius is not the real enemy here, the real enemy is…"

"The afro guy." Alex replied as he clenched his fists tightly. "There is no doubt about that!"

Alex then looked around him vigilantly, as if he was expecting something jumping out to scare him. "I am sure that he will not let go of a chance like this. He will arrive, even with master blocking him earlier."

"Are you saying that Uncle will lose to him?" Alina inquired with incredulity as she gave Alex a withering look. "Do you even trust your master?"

"I know that my master is strong, but I feel that the afro guy is an extremely durable person." Alex replied as he showed an object that he was holding in his left hand.

Alina looked at it and she saw that Alex was holding the Star-Crusted Dagger, glinting in its full glory.

"But do not worry, I think that even if my master loses, he will not be killed by the afro guy." Alex said as he placed the dagger near his arm. "The afro guy surely still have some use for Espers like my master, so he will not kill him."

Alina was about to say something to Alex when someone interrupted their conversation.

"Mr. Alex, I am really impressed with your intellect. Would you mind being my secretary after I sort all of this mess?"

Both Alex and Alina jumped in surprise as they heard this nonchalant voice behind them.

They looked back, and they saw a man clad covered in white glow, carrying an unconscious man on his shoulders.

Upon closer look, Alex realized that the unconscious man was his master, while the glowing man was the afro guy that they were worried about earlier!

"What do you think about my offer, Mr. Alex?" The afro guy said as his hair looked curlier than before. "You will love working under me…"

"Thanks, but no thanks!" Alex fearlessly replied as he slit his skin with the Star-Crusted Dagger. Blood spilled out of the wound as Alex felt the effects of the dagger taking in place.

Alex felt the familiar rush inside his body as his Mental Power increased drastically. He felt more powerful right now, and he had the notion that he could take on anything already.

This made Alex more confident, even if he could feel extreme danger coming from the afro guy.

"You see Mr. President, we are extremely busy right now, so we cannot accept any visitors… So I will have to ask you to leave our location quietly and peacefully. But if you intend to stay in our premises for a longer time, then I will treat it as trespassing, and I will be left with no choice but to eject you by force!"