“What was the second secret you mentioned?” Bell asked a short while later.


    “Compared to the time travel bomb, this one is pretty tame. I’d still prefer the details not be shared,” I said, glancing between my mentor and my sister-in-law. “I mentioned to Zavira that my rift reward was an upgrade to my inventory, but that isn’t the whole truth.”


    I’d need to bring Zavira in on the secret now that I was telling Bell and Kai. She was one of my most trusted friends. She’d certainly been the most consistent with messaging while I was stuck in the rift.


    “The rift reward actually absorbed my inventory,” I continued. “It’s no longer anchored to my body. Now, the dimensional space is soulbound. I have a lot more control over it, and it can even hold living items.”


    Bell’s eyes grew wider than my mentor’s, but it was obvious that he was surprised by the revelation as well.


    “What does that mean, soulbound?” Bell asked. “I mean, I get it in a fantasy fiction context, but since respawns aren’t really a thing, I guess I don’t see the purpose in it. Would the space and its contents follow you if you were reborn?”


    I shrugged and looked at Kai, hoping he might have some insight on the topic. I had some theories based on the feelings I got from the space, but I didn’t want to color his opinion by sharing my thoughts first.


    “Soulbound items are practically mythic,” Kai informed us. “There have only been a dozen or so individual souls in recorded history with a documented soulbound artifact. Interestingly, the reappearance of such artifacts is one way of tracking a particular reincarnated soul. None have lasted beyond three cycles, though, so it isn’t truly as permanent as the label may imply.”


    “What happens to them after that?” I asked.


    “I don’t know. Perhaps the link weakens between lives?”


    “So, you’ll have the inventory in your next two or three lives?” Bell gasped. “That’s pretty overpowered, especially if the contents transfer.”


    “I don’t think it would work quite like that,” I said with a frown. “The pocket dimension is linked to my soul, so it’s Tier Nine right now. If I died and was reborn with it, the space would only be Tier One. I doubt the contents would transfer.”


    I was actually quite certain of that fact. I didn’t know where the certainty came from, but I knew that if I were to die or ascend, the contents of the pocket dimension would be lost. The space itself would remain in an altered state, but none of the contents would survive the transition.


    “Still, that’s pretty overpowered,” Bell said. I didn’t disagree.


    “You mentioned being able to store living creatures,” Kai continued. “Have you tested that yet?”


    “Not intentionally,” I admitted. “I accidentally transferred a few different types of creatures into the space when I was making my garden. I left them there for a day with extreme time dilation in effect, just to see what would happen.”


    “What did happen?” Bell asked curiously.


    “They were fine… mostly.”


    “Mostly?”


    I let out a nervous chuckle. “I… uh, I forgot to provide food and water for the critters, so they ate through the vegetation I’d collected. It was probably lucky the ones I grabbed weren’t carnivores.”


    It was an embarrassing oversight, but I’d been distracted with power-leveling my family and not getting caught during my nightly trips to one of the uninhabited Tier Nine planets in a nearby system.


    It certainly highlighted my need for some kind of caretaker for the space. Even if I didn’t have anything but plants, I’d need something to control the environment and ensure any necessary pollination took place.


    I didn’t necessarily need insects or other critters for the job since the right formation could do the same task more efficiently. Just having some kind of Mana Intelligence to keep track of everything would be more than enough.


    Maybe Lisa could handle it. She already had a semi-corporal avatar.


    I shook my head. It was something to figure out later.


    “Did you guys want to see it?” I asked.


    Kai smiled widely and nodded while Bell’s expression shifted to worry.


    “Are you sure that’s safe?” she asked. “If it’s Tier Nine, that’s a bit too much for me.”


    She brought up a good point. But as soon as the problem was pointed out, I instinctively knew how to fix it.


    “It’ll be fine. I can anchor a localized Tier Five area. It’s basically like a [Mana Barrier], except it won’t be accomplished through enchantments. Instead, the space itself will accommodate you.”


    “That seems really…” Bell trailed off. “Do you really have that much control over your inventory now?”


    “I do,” I promised. “And it’s not really an inventory so much as a personal pocket dimension.”


    “I mean, it’s still an inventory if you’re using it to store stuff,” Bell pointed out. I was glad that her mood had improved since our earlier conversation.


    Once I assured her again that entering the space was perfectly safe, Bell’s curiosity won out, and she agreed to enter my pocket dimension.


    “Okay, hold onto me,” I said.


    “Wait, you can enter too?” Bell asked. “How does that work?”


    I shifted the three of us into my private workshop. The localized Tier Five area manifested immediately around my sister-in-law, ensuring she was kept safe from the higher-density mana within the space.


    “I can’t explain it,” I said after letting go. “All I know is that it works. I can enter the space freely and exit anywhere I’ve previously entered from, or anywhere I’ve left a spatial marker. They aren’t quite the same as a regular beacon since it doesn’t seem like they expire, but I obviously haven’t gotten a chance to test that theory.”


    “Is there a limit to how many you can have at one time?” Kai asked, though his eyes were roaming the sparsely furnished expanded pod.


    “Not that I’m aware of.”


    “Oh,” Bell spun toward me. “Will you be able to use this to leave the dungeon?”


    I opened my mouth to say yes, then hesitated.


    “I’m actually not sure. It depends on whether or not the dungeon exists in a separate subrealm like rifts do.” I paused, giving it more thought. “I… don’t think I can use this pocket dimension to escape a rift, but I need to test that.”


    If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    “Please don’t jump right back into a rift, Emie,” Bell pleaded. “There’s no rush. I was just curious.”


    “I won’t jump right back into a rift,” I promised, mimicking her phrasing. “I can check it when Zavira and I do our mandatory delve. I told her I’d bring her along on mine to help boost her progress since she won’t be re-entering the dungeon for the foreseeable future.”


    Mentioning Zavira and delving reminded me of something and I turned to Kai. “Zavira wanted to join us when we dispense justice to the former Sovereignty Sect members,” I told him. “Do you have any idea when you’ll want to do that?”


    The Time Mage removed a familiar-looking cube from a spatially expanded pocket. It looked a lot like the one Sir Eri’Non had had me give to the Gatekeeper.


    “We can start whenever you want,” he said, handing me the cube. “Since there obviously won’t be any complications involved in storing this in your pocket dimension, it’s probably better for you to hold onto it.”


    I took the cube from his hand and looked at it closely. “Is it a [Stasis Storage] cube?”


    Kai nodded. “One capable of storing living beings,” he said with a grin. “On the surface, your reward isn’t so remarkable that you’d need to keep it hidden. Just don’t tell anyone any more than that. I’d keep the fact that you can enter it secret, but even that isn’t so rare for Master-quality spatial items. Certainly don’t tell anyone that you can use it to travel. Let them think you’re teleporting like a normal Space Mage.”


    “I was going to tell Zavira…”


    “It’s your secret, Emie,” he reminded me. “If you trust her with it, who am I to advise you differently?”


    “Is there more to it than this?” Bell asked.


    “Oh, yeah. This is just the bottom floor of a pod I expanded. I plan to make the top floor into an apartment.” I focused on the back corner and willed a set of stairs to manifest.


    I would have needed to touch a wall to manage the same thing outside of my pocket dimension, but within the space, my will permeated everything.


    Once the stairs solidified, I led the way to the second floor.


    “There’s hardly anything here,” Bell said.


    “I haven’t really had time to go shopping,” I replied. “This is what I’ve been using for the last twenty-six years.”


    Longer, actually, since I’d had some of it before I’d gotten tossed into the rift.


    “We need to take you shopping,” Bell said with an excited glint in her eyes. “You should measure out the space and have your Interface Assistant create a few floorplan options. I’ll help you design everything. It’ll be awesome. You can just live here instead of getting a place somewhere else. You can even use my apartment as a transition point if you need to.”


    “That’s not a bad idea,” Kai commented as he walked from one side of the floor to the other. “It’s quite a large space. Given your demonstration earlier, I imagine you can easily add or remove walls if you so desire.”


    “Sure. I’ve always made my pods capable of having separate compartments.”


    “Though I do not think there is any lingering threat toward you, resting in an unassailable location such as this has its merits. At a minimum, you won’t have to worry about security.” His expression twisted into a grimace as he came to a stop beside me. “As I’m sure you’re aware, even our best efforts can sometimes be thwarted.”


    I knew he was referencing the surveillance devices discovered in my penthouse after I was abducted. The Assassin hadn’t bothered to collect them once he captured me, and the sect had found them when they placed all of my items into storage.


    I’d gotten several messages regarding the topic from Kai when the security breach was discovered, so I was well aware of his perceived failure.


    I patted his arm. “Don’t beat yourself up over it,” I said comfortingly. “And you’re right. This space is much more secure than basically any other option available.” I glanced around the almost empty space. “Do you want to see the garden?”


    “Oh, I do!” Bell said. “Where is it? You didn’t make any windows.”


    “Yeah, the boundary of the pocket dimension is a bit weird. You’ll see what I mean in a minute,” I said, leading them down the stairs and to the only door.


    “Holy hell. That’s creepy as fuck,” Bell muttered, freezing in the doorway.


    “It’s safe,” I promised a moment before the invisible ground shifted to something that looked like stone. It was gray, at least. “I haven’t decided what to do about the rest. I can manually shift it to look like something else, much like I did with the ground, but it would just be an illusion. I thought about bringing in some dirt and grass, but I don’t want to deal with an ecosystem outside of the garden branch.”


    “And where is that?” Bell asked.


    I motioned for them to follow me and began making my way toward the garden. I added color to the ‘walls’ to reduce the unsettling feeling as we went, but left the ‘ceiling’ unchanged.


    “The branch we’re in is the smallest of the three and only contains my expanded pod for now,” I said. It didn’t take long to reach the junction. “The garden and stasis storage are roughly the same size, though most of the garden is little more than dirt and some random plants that I acquired from an uninhabited Tier Nine world.”


    “Really?” Bell said curiously. “When did you travel to one of those?”


    “While you guys were sleeping during the excursion,” I replied, stepping from the faux gray stone onto packed dirt. “The garden and the workshop branches are both kept at about a twenty-to-one time dilation ratio, while the stasis storage is, obviously, held in stasis.”


    “I thought I sensed a time dilation field,” Kai said. “It isn’t as obvious as it should be, though.”


    “That’s probably because the dilation effect is built into the rules of the dimension. Well, kinda,” I hedged. “The active portion of the garden is always dilated, but this part and the workshop branch are only dilated when I’m physically present. Otherwise, they’re held in stasis as well. I can change that if needed, but for now, that’s how I have it set up.”


    As if there was a line drawn marking the border between zones, the ground shifted from plain dirt to something resembling a jungle.


    “This… doesn’t look much like a garden,” Bell commented.


    “It isn’t, really,” I said. “I just grabbed several varieties of plants and trees to start with. I’m just testing things right now.”


    “I see you added a stream,” Kai commented with a smirk.


    I rubbed my neck. “Ah, yeah. I already ejected the critters I accidentally grabbed, but I thought it was a good idea to include it anyway.”


    “Where does the water go?” Bell asked before adding, “Where did it come from, for that matter?”


    “I made a [Waterspout] formation,” I said. “The stream winds through the garden and circles back on itself. It took a bit of effort to build in controls to ensure it wouldn’t overflow, but it seems to be working well enough.”


    I was actually a little proud of my accomplishment since I’d had to lightly mess with gravity in a few areas. The water probably wouldn’t support aquatic life without a bit more tweaking, but I could always deal with that later.


    “I don’t mind helping you plan the garden too. It’s the least I can do since you’re going to help me with my formation,” Bell said.


    “The sect has a lot of resources that would probably benefit your plans,” Kai added. “You should ask the new Patriarch when you visit him.”


    I paused and raised a brow at my mentor. “When am I supposed to do that?”


    “Soon, I would think,” he commented. “Before I officially gave up control of the sect, I released you from any obligation to the sect. You are still a member, but your oathbound obligations have been fulfilled. Keep that in mind when you talk to him.”


    “Why would you do that?” I asked.


    Kai paused and looked contemplatively into the distance. I hadn’t changed the ‘walls’ of the garden branch to hide the surrounding void, so there was little to see aside from the unending darkness.


    “The Epikairos Sect has already gained far more from your membership than you have received. If anything, the sect is in your debt, and that debt continues to grow with each day that you remain associated with it.”


    “I don’t understand. Aside from the MealMaker and maybe the E3 talisman design, I haven’t really provided anything of value to the sect.”


    “That’s where you’re wrong,” Kai said. “When you became a tri-affinity mage, the sect’s prestige rose significantly. And when you transitioned to an Elder, that prestige only increased. Our recruitment numbers are up significantly, and the quality of new disciples we’re able to select has likewise increased.


    “I would ask that you interact with the sect during your time outside of the dungeon, but merely maintaining your association with the sect is enough. The new Patriarch will undoubtedly want to parade you around a bit. The sect is very proud of you.”


    I suppressed a wince at the thought of being paraded around like a trophy, but I understood the value of such things. I’d been gone for a quarter of a century, so showing that I’m still alive and an active member of the sect is probably important.


    “We didn’t publicize the fact that you were abducted, though rumors of it did leak,” the former Patriarch said. “Because of that, the new Patriarch will almost certainly want to hold some kind of social event, and your presence will be expected.”


    “Will you be there?” I asked.


    “Of course. As the Founder, I have an obligation to be there for as long as I remain in the realm.”


    “Good,” I said with a small sigh of relief. Some people really enjoyed the limelight, but I’d never been one of them.


    “Hey, so I know we’ve been under some pretty hefty time dilation, but if there’s nothing else you want us to see, I’d like to get started on designing some stuff for this space. In exchange, I’d love it if you’d review some of the modifications I’ve made to the formation blueprint,” Bell said to me a moment before I received an updated digital copy of the blueprint.


    I was a little surprised that the exchange worked in the pocket dimension since I’d noticed there was a distinct lack of system messages or notifications while I was there. Maybe it was because she was physically in the space with me?


    “Alright, get close then,” I said. “I’ll send you the dimensions of the pod now. Let’s limit the garden to a few acres for now. I still need to figure out a way to manage it without needing to focus on it all the time.”