Edward sat in a room while smoking a pipe. He was thinking about the conversation with Cronai. Albeit brief, he learned a lot of things. For example, she was most likely protecting the Empire.
As for the reason? He did not think it was just because of the Magus. His theory is that she did not favor the current rules of the gods and wanted a change in the universe.
"The Arcane Era, huh?" muttered Edward. "Interesting. In that case, it would be best to keep her as an ally. However, this is more difficult to do because of Conceptual Magic."
To use Conceptual Magic, he will need to force her to hand over control of the Laws of the universe, and this act could ruin the current positive relationship.
'I will try my best to explain things to her and maybe even come up with a deal. However, if all fails, we can only be enemy.'
Edward did not mind having a helper in the future fight against the Gods–even if that ally could not directly help. However, he also has to consider his benefit as well.
"Morgana."
"Yes, master," said the little elf as she manifested.
"Send a message to Dumbledore to watch out for any information on the Magus Race and the Elder Gods."
"Yes, boss."
Edward wanted to unravel the Magus race's mystery and used this opportunity to see if he could get more Elder God's Divine Sparks. Currently, he has 6 of them: the Death Chamber, the Hall of Prophecy, the Brain Room, the Love Room, the Space Chamber, and the Time Room.
These Divine Sparks were the best teacher on understanding and using [Authority], and a few of them had significant purposes in the Empire.
The Space Chamber was used to block and monitor the space of all the Empire's territories. The Hall of Prophecy was in Luna's hand and used to keep track of all prophecies in the Empire and served as Anti-Divination Enchantment for important information about the Empire.
The Brain Room is the main server of Morgana, which also controlled Skynet in the Empire. The Love Room was in Lily Potter's hand, and Edward tasked her to create a protection spell that could also cover the entire Empire in a time of need.
Unfortunately, her Divine Spark seemed to be the most troublesome, and this project has yielded little to no improvement.
Before his journey, he tasked Hermione to study the Death Chamber and Herpo's ceremonial magic. However, the chamber was now in Bellatrix's hand.
As for the Time Room, Edward used it as the primary weapon of the Time Auror to keep watch on the Empire's timeline. However, he planned to use it for something better later; however, that requires him to go for a brief visit to the Rick and Morty World.
Any of these Divine Sparks are enough to start a war that spreads throughout the entire universe. However, Edward wanted more if possible.
After thinking about all of these, Edward continued with his life, preparing for Project Akashic Record.
And just like that, five years passed.
Edward focused on his magical study and experiment; he focused on two things: Albion's Dragon Chant Magic and Nick's Anti-Divinity Vessel.
With Albion's experience and understanding, he mastered Intermediate Dragon Chant while still a beginner in Advanced one. However, as he expected, humans cannot bring into full play this magic since their physiology and souls are different from dragons.
So, what he's been doing is translating into a form of magic suitable for humans before integrating them into his Arcane Rune Magic. As for the study of Nick's body, the progress could only be considered mediocre.
Many changes occurred in the Empire over the past five years. The development is even faster than before. With the knowledge brought back by Edward, and the access to the Time Flow Enchantments, many Tier 6 Arcanists were born.
However, Edward did not allow them to continue using it to reach Tier 7; he did not even use it himself or let his family use it. And that was because Merlin warned him of overusing Time Magic to rapidly reach higher magical stages–especially in the lower Tiers.
According to Merlin, this was not a problem in the higher Tiers but not the current one he was in. Edward was intrigued, so he did some experiments to discover the reason.
He placed a clone inside the enchantments and provided them with the resources to reach higher Tiers. However, he did not teach it the Liquefying and Crystalizing Mana methods.
The clone had to rely on slowly expanding his magic core and gathering to reach high Tiers, which would require a tremendous amount of time.
After the clone reached Tier 5, 3 thousand years had passed inside the enchantment while only three months passed outside. Then, Edward discovered the problem.
Time energy had embedded deep inside the clone's body resulting in terrible consequences. Some parts of his body would either instantly age upward or backward.
For example, his right arm might instantly turn into an older man's, while his left-hand turns into a baby. And at some point, the clone instantly aged by a few million years and died of old age.
He could not stop the process no matter what Edward tried, so he finally understood Merlin's warning.
Back to the Empire:
Magic and technology developed rapidly, with breakthroughs occurring each week. At some point, Amelia had to order for the news of certain information, knowledge, or technology to be delayed to give people more time to adapt.
Many of the people that Edward brought began to shine. For example, Chloe became a Tier 6 Arcanist, discovered this universe's Dream Dimension, and focused her experiments on it.
All the royal family members became Tier 6 within a year of Edward's return, so they returned to doing their own things. A year ago, Olivier finally became the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Navy, and her status as a Queen was revealed with a small wedding.
Right now, she focused all her attention on expanding the territory of the Empire outward while also monitoring the situation of the Milky Way, which had gotten worse.
More and more star systems were destroyed to increase the Undead Legion. The name of the Arcane Empire quickly spread during this time, not only because they were a new Tier 8 Civilization, but because they sold magic scrolls or items capable of dealing with the undead in large quantities.
Inside a room, Edward sat cross-legged with his eyes closed; he was in deep meditation. Mana was entering his body, but at the same time, a strange flame could be slightly observed with the naked eye in the position of his heart.
After an unknown amount of time, he opened his eyes. He raised his hand, and a purple orb with slight blue appeared in his hand.
"My mana is getting closer to complete purification, meaning I'm very close to Tier 7."
Then, the purple orb in his hand changed to a white one.
"Aura is genuinely a strange energy. It does not require a core to serve as a vessel, and it cannot be purified. However, with the purification of mana, it also becomes more powerful.
"Maybe my previous understanding of it was wrong. It is not a perfect combination of mana and life force. Maybe, it is just an advanced form of life force, using mana to boost it and make it versatile."
He took a note of his thought so that someone else could verify it. Although he invented [Aura], he was genuinely not interested in studying it as a subject; he just wanted to have a strong body.
Edward then waved his hand to manifest a holographic screen; he wanted to check his email. Immediately, a slight surprise appeared on his face.
"All the preparations for Project Akashic Records have been completed? Excellent. Morgana, call all the Illuminati members."
"As you wish, boss."
After then, he continued reading all the emails he received. Once he finished, he headed for a meeting with Olivier since she said that she had something important to talk to him about.